Romans chapter 8 and verse 28. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called,
them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these
things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. We often speak of the Lord's
love for his people. and rightly so. It is the most
wonderful, gracious mercy upon the face of this earth that God
should love fallen creatures like us. However, today I want briefly
to mention our love for the Lord. and I hope to show you that it
is wonderful too. I wonder if you've ever speculated
why it was that Eve, when tempted by the serpent to eat the fruit
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, being still unspoiled by the
effect of the fall, which had not yet happened, did not say,
I love my creator, I love my God and my friend too much to
go against his will. Or indeed, why Adam, when confronted
with his wife's sin, and while yet in the same innocent state,
loved his wife more than he loved his Maker, and chose her above
his God? That's a question I do not know
the answer to. But evidently, even before the
fall, human love for God had its limits. Adam and Eve ought
to have loved God, ought to have loved Him enough to trust and
obey Him, but they did not. All men and women ought to love
God and obey Him. but like our first parents, we
will not. Furthermore, because our father
Adam brought us all into his sin and condemnation, we cannot
love God. Let me say it like this. If Adam
and Eve could not love, trust, and obey God in their innocence,
How can you and I love, trust and obey God in our spiritual
deadness and in our innate wickedness? All men ought to love God. It is right and proper we do,
yet we cannot, having neither the will nor ability to do so. When the Lord Jesus Christ was
inquired of by a scribe concerning the first or the greatest commandment,
the Lord told him, quoting Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 5, The Lord
our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind and with
all thy strength. It is a command that seems reasonable,
given who God is and what we are. But from Eden until now,
it has proved impossible to fulfil. In fact, the only one who has
ever properly loved the Father is the Son. the Lord Jesus himself,
as he tells us in John chapter 14, verse 31. All men ought to love God, but
none can. Adam could not in his innocence,
and we cannot in our enmity. Paul speaks of enmity in this
chapter eight, in the verses preceding these verses that we're
looking at today. Paul speaks about enmity. And I mentioned yesterday, enmity
is that governing principle in the heart and soul and mind of
natural men and women, which is averse to and hostile towards
God and his rule over us. Enmity is the state of all who
do not possess the spirit of Christ. However, here in this verse 28,
the Apostle Paul also points out something else. He has spoken
about the natural enmity. But now here in this chapter,
in verse 28, he tells us that there are some who, despite what
we have said concerning natural ill will and inability, there
are some who do indeed love God. In the verses before us today,
Paul speaks of them that love God. so that the apostle is introducing
us to a rare and exclusive group of people who do what even Adam
and Eve in their innocence could not do. They love, trust, and
obey the Lord. And Paul is revealing how Regeneration,
how new life in Christ brings new abilities, brings new desires
and new affections to the redeemed of the Lord, to the children
of God, not least towards God himself. And he's also putting
the lie in this verse to the false teaching which is still
sadly present in so-called evangelical pulpits today. that fallen men
and women can be persuaded to love the Lord and convinced to
trust and obey him. Paul is showing us that before
a sinner can love God, it requires a new creation. Before a sinner
can love God, it requires conversion and transformation and a divine
act of grace. So let us be clear. If there
is in our hearts the presence of love for God, be it ever so
weak and variable, ever so slight and meagre, it is evidence of a work of grace. Love for God comes only with
saving faith. It is a divine gift. It is the
fruit, a fruit, of the Holy Spirit. And love for God dwells only
in a renewed heart, in a cleansed soul, and in a born-again, quickened
spirit. When God gives the gift of faith
to a sinner, his spirit indwells the heart and soul of this new
creation. And Paul tells the Corinthians,
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are
passed away. The old inabilities of the Adam
nature, the old servitude to sin and Satan, the old way of
living, the old reliance on self-righteousness, the ignorance of God and Christ
and spiritual things that once attended our life and was all
that we possessed. With faith comes spiritual life,
spiritual sight, and spiritual understanding. A new king sits
on the throne of a believer's heart. A new power lives and
reigns in his soul. A new spirit motivates and monitors
his passions. And the soul of a believer, in
that soul, new principles spring to life. With faith comes love,
peace, joy, long-suffering, gentleness and goodness, all the gifts and
graces of God the Holy Spirit. And furthermore, every spiritual
grace is fully formed and operational. And though it begins small and
it begins weak, it lives. It grows, it thrives to the glory
of God. Now I know that when I speak
like this, I know when I say some of these things, that some
of you will say, that can't be me. I don't feel like I am thriving
spiritually. I don't feel like I possess the
fruit of the Spirit. I don't even feel like I even
begin to love the Lord like I should. You feel that your love is shallow
and weak. Does it help to know that you
are not alone? Does it help to know that that
feeling is common to every child of God? Is that not also true about every
other spiritual grace that we possess? Are they not all tried
and tested and often stretched to breaking point? Our faith
is tried, our patience is tried, our joy and peace is often upended. And we wonder why is life so
hard when we trust the Lord? We should not then be surprised
that our love for God is also tried and tested. And often the
devil tempts us to question whether there is any real love within
us at all. Well, Paul says there is. That is what he's telling us
here in this verse. He is speaking of them that love
God. There are men and women who trust
Christ for cleansing and righteousness. And they are them that love God. Love for God and faith in Christ
are so inextricably linked as to be inseparable. If we have
faith in Christ, we have love for God. John tells us we love
him because he first loved us. And Peter speaks of him whom
having not seen ye love. so that even when we lose sight
of our Saviour and fall prey to temptation, the One who first
loved us and gave Himself for us will not let us go. He keeps us in His love and He
brings us back to love and trust Him again. One of the old Baptist
preachers, a man called John Fawcett, wrote a line in a hymn
which says this. He wrote, blessed be the tie
that binds. Well, Christ is the one who maintains
the tie that binds. Though love is weak on our part,
it is strong on his part. Spiritual graces, like faith,
is a muscle, or like a muscle. As our spiritual graces are exercised,
they grow and become stronger. And that is true of a believer's
love as well. Just as we have Christ's faith
as our faith, so we have Christ's love for our love. It is the
true love, it is the perfect love. It is the divine love of
the Lord Jesus Christ that he gives to us. That is why we can
do what no other human being but Christ himself ever did. We can love God. Despite our feelings of failure,
Paul teaches us nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Through our troubles, through
much tribulation, he reveals the breadth and the length and
the depth and the height of Christ's love for us. And when the dimensions,
when the infinite dimensions of eternal love begin to be felt
in a believer's experience, when they are sensed, when they are
enjoyed by the Lord's elect people, our own love for Christ grows
in proportion and is drawn out towards God. our love deepens
and expands as our appreciation and admiration of our Lord and
Saviour is enlarged. What do I mean by that? Let me
restate it like this. The more we know of Christ's
suffering and pain, the more we will love him. The more we
know of his humiliation and condescension, His power and His glory, His
mediation and intercession, or any of the myriad attributes
and accomplishments of His love and His grace and His mercy towards
us. The more we know of these things,
the more we know of Christ, the more we shall love Him. Because
to know Christ is to love Him. And this leads me on to consider
the purpose of our love for God. It might seem a strange and even
a foolish question to ask, why does the Lord place a love for
him in our hearts? Why love? Why of all the qualities,
of all the emotions and affections, why is love so important? Indeed, why is love the first
fruit of the Spirit in a Christian's experience? Well, for this reason,
God places His love in our life to inculcate and inspire a desire
within us to be like Him and to emulate His character in our
lives. Everything that we desire to
be is what Christ is to perfection. And because we love Him, We study
him. We learn him. We follow him. We try to walk as he walked and
live as he lived in accordance with his will. We imitate him. We copy him. Some people try to tell us that
we have a duty to obey the law of God and suggest that this
is what sanctifies and makes us holy. Well, I just say good
luck with that. I say, rather, we are holy and
without blame before Him in love so that we can be like Him. We love the doctrine of predestination,
but let us be aware we are not predestinated to heaven. We are
not predestinated to glory, at least not in the first instance. Hear what Paul tells us in verse
29, we read it. It's coming after this, but we've
read it already today. We are predestinated to be conformed
to the image of Christ. We want to be like Christ. We're
predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ. He hath chosen us in him this
is Ephesians, he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love. Because we love Christ, because
he has implanted love for God in our hearts, we want to be
like him. Our greatest desire is to be
indistinguishable from Him. Our greatest desire is to be
united to Him. Our greatest desire is to be
Him. He the head, we the body. It's what we aspire to. And it
is love, not law, that compels the child of God to be like their
Saviour. Now in the new man, we are already
like him. And when we get to heaven, we
shall be more like him because this flesh that is so full of
sin and corruption will be changed. And when he shall appear, we
shall be like him. Not because we've been getting
holier and holier. We are already as holy in him
as we ever shall be, but because we've been exercising all the
attributes that we desire and admire in him. We are desirous of living like
him and we endeavour to fashion ourselves after his likeness. even in this world. Our conformity
to Christ is not based on law, but on love. We are transformed
by the renewing of our minds. And this is why Paul says, love
is the fulfilling of the law. In Colossians 3, he calls it
the bond of perfectness. That's a lovely phrase, the bond
of perfectness. Love is the bond of perfectness. It's Colossians 3, verse 14.
And above all these things, put on charity, that is love, which
is the bond of perfectness. Without this love, all religion
is vain and insignificant. Though I speak, says Paul, with
the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, have not
love, and become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. I fear
there is much sounding brass and tinkling cymbals in the name
of religion today. But if we have true faith in
Christ, then we have love for God. And after love to God and Christ,
all other loves fall into place. Love to the brethren, love for
the gathering of the Lord's people, love for the worship of God,
love for the truths of the scriptures and the ordinances of the gospel
and the doctrines of truth. Even our love for our neighbours
and those who are outside of Christ all follow after this
principle love of God. And when we discover by spiritual
illumination God's love for us, how everlasting love manifested
itself in the covenant of peace, in the setting of us apart from
the general mass of fallen mankind and the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ to die for us and the gift of grace. Nothing, nothing
more than these great truths, this manifestation of the everlasting
love of God towards us, nothing more enlivens or inflames our
love to God than considering these things. It shows us that
God's love and grace and our eternal glory is free and sovereign
and distinguishing and unmerited and we love him all the more
because he first loved us. Going to heaven and our entrance
into glory will be the perfecting of our love. John tells us in
1 John 4, verse 17, Herein is our love. That's our love, not
God's love to us, our love. Herein is our love made perfect,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because
as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but
perfect love casteth out fear. And I would like us all to hold
onto this thought in closing today. The end, the object and
the purpose of our love for God is boldness in the day of judgment. Think on that, think on that.
When we stand before the Lord Jesus Christ, the judge of the
earth in the day of judgment, Our boldness, our confidence,
our hope and faith will boil down to this one simple fact. We love Him. We love Him. Not one of the Lord's redeemed
people will look at the law to see whether or not we're acceptable.
We shall look at Christ in love and all our confidence will be
in Him. What does it say? What does Paul
say? Let's read it again. As he is, so are we in this world. As he is, so are we in this world. He is perfect. He is holy. He is righteous. He is pure. And as he is, so are we in this
world. And that is the simple reason
we shall embark upon the day of judgment with boldness. Now, if you don't feel that boldness
yet, don't worry. While Paul says we are them that
love God, yet we still see through a glass darkly. But soon we shall
see face to face. As we learn more of the Lord,
as we trust him more, as we deepen our experience of him, then soon
our love for God will be as pure and unmixed as any creature's
love for God can be. The angels in heaven love the
Lord, but they were never redeemed from the depths of sin. He who
has forgiven much, loves much, and your love for God and mine
will continue to grow to all eternity. May the Lord bless
these thoughts to us today. Amen.