Oh, make me thine forever. And should I fainting be. Lord, let me never, never outlive
my love for thee. I'm going to attempt to preach
on this subject. Love Christ in sincerity. These are the closing words of
this epistle. Ephesians chapter six, verse
24. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in
sincerity. Amen. Now this is the church that in Revelation 2, verse 4,
Christ said to this church, I have something against thee. This
was probably 50 years later. I have something against thee. For thou hast left thy first
love. I wonder if there's something
that Paul saw, even then, that made him close this epistle with
these words, Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity. Grace be with them. Grace is the cause. of any sincere
love toward the Lord Jesus Christ. If I possess sincere love toward
the Lord Jesus Christ, it's because of His grace toward me. You see, His grace saves. It's not an offer. His grace
saves, and His grace does something to everybody He gives His grace
to. I like what John said in 1 John
4, 19. We love Him. We do, don't we? We do. He's altogether lovely. We want to love Him more. We
don't feel like our love is sufficient. And if we think of our love,
it seems pathetic as compared to what it ought to be. But we
do love him. And we know why. It's because
he first loved us. And his love never goes unreciprocated. Everybody he loves, loves him
in return. Grace be with those who love
our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. The Greek dictionary gives three
meanings to this word, all of which are applicable. Number
one, grace be with all those that love our Lord Jesus Christ
in incorruption. Number two, Grace be with all
those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in perpetuity or perseverance. They continue to love him. They don't begin to love him.
They continue to love him. And grace be with all those who
love our Lord Jesus Christ in genuineness. You know what that
means. Genuineness. Sincerity. Now the first meaning is incorruption. Grace be unto all those who love
the Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption. Now this word is used to describe
the state of the resurrected glorified bodies of the saints
when they stand before God in sinless perfection. Now what this is talking about
is that which the new nature possesses. If you love God, it's
not from your own heart. It's not something that you have
by nature. If you love the Lord Jesus Christ,
it didn't come from your own heart or your old nature. It's
the product of the new nature, the incorruptible nature. the
holy nature. Now the old nature has no love
for God and no love for Christ. Roman chapter eight, verses seven
and eight says the carnal mind, that's the mind you were born
with. That's the very first mind you had the first day you were
alive. You might not have been conscious of it yet, but it'll
happen. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. That's strong language. The carnal
mind is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. It lacks the ability to be. So
then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. There's no love for God, no love
for Christ, no love for his gospel in the heart of the natural man. But this is what the new man
does. The new man created in Christ
Jesus. Turn with me for a moment to
1 John chapter four. This is the love that comes as
a result of being born of God. Verse seven. Beloved, let us love one another
For love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God, and
knoweth God. Now somebody says, well, this
person is not a believer, but they love their children just
like I love mine. I agree with that, I know that,
that's so, but that's not the kind of love being spoken of
here. This is talking about the love that comes from the new
nature, being born of God. Everyone that loveth is born
of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not
God. For God is love. Now let me remind
you that every believer and only the believer has two separate
natures. One that loves God and one that
has no love for God. One that does not sin and one
that All it does is sin. Now, if you don't understand
that, I have no, I want to say this,
I don't understand it. I don't understand how I have
one person and two separate natures coming out of one consciousness.
I can't say that I understand that or grasp that, but I believe
it and it fits my own experience. I know that I have a nature that's
nothing but sin, that hadn't become any better, any more holy. It's just as bad, just as depraved,
just as wicked, just as selfish as it ever was. And I also have
a nature that loves the Lord Jesus Christ and would be just
like him. Every believer knows this by
experience. And somebody that doesn't know
that in their own experience, I fear it's because They only
have one nature. It takes two natures to understand
this thing of having two natures. But this is what the word means. First, this is the way it's generally
translated. Grace be with all them that love
our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption. Incorruption. I think of Peter
talking about The woman who's born of God is a not corruptible
spirit. Not corruptible spirit, same
root word. Love doesn't come out of your
own natural heart. Don't you know that? It's not
there. Now the second meaning of the
word, sincerity means in perpetuity or perseverance. Love to Christ,
we'll continue to love Christ. It never stops. It will die loving
Christ, and it will spend eternity loving the Lord Jesus Christ. And I love that hymn we sing,
when with the ransomed in glory, his face I at last shall see. It will be my joy through the
ages to sing of my love to him. Didn't sing it right, did I? To sing of his love to me. The highest position mere you
could have is to be like John, that disciple that Jesus loved. And sincerity means genuine,
sincere, real. Now, you know what it is for
someone to say good things to you, but they're not sincere.
Flattery. You've experienced that. And
doesn't mean anything to you, does it? Because it's not sincere. real from the heart, the real
you. I think of the way Paul ended
the epistle to 1 Corinthians. If any man love not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha. Let him be damned
upon the return of the Lord. Now, I have no doubt that Paul
loved the souls of men I wish I could describe how. But if
any man doesn't love Jesus Christ the Lord, and he dies in that
condition, he ought to be damned. That's how great that crime is. Grace be with all them that love
our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Now, think about this. Grace
be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Now to love him, he's gonna have
to be your Lord Jesus Christ. You're gonna be able to say by
the grace of God, I am my beloved's and he is mine. Now let me remind you about this
thing of love to Christ. If you start looking at how much
you love him, you're gonna see it falls way short of how it
should be. But if you see he is the beloved,
he's the well-beloved of the Father, and you see his love
to you, you're gonna say, I am my beloved, and he is mine. He's your Lord, he's your Savior,
he's your husband, he's your all, you know him. That's an
awesome thing to think about, because we used to have a dog
named Kiwi, been dead about 10 years. And that dog knew me. When I came in, the dog was glad
to see me, even when Lynn and Aubrey weren't. He'd be just
all excited about seeing me. And I always enjoyed that part
of him. He knew me, but he didn't know me very well. He's a dog. I'm afraid that that's a lot
the way I feel about my love to Christ and my knowledge of
Him. I know Him like a dog knows his master. But in the infinite
glory of His person, I don't know Him anywhere near as well
as I ought to know Him and as I one day will know Him. And
I'll spend eternity knowing Him more and more and more. But He
is our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with them that love
our Lord Jesus Christ now you can't love him and not love his
lordship Do you love? His lordship in creation that
he's the one who spake the world's into existence Do you love his lordship in Providence
that he really is controlling everything and everybody and
There's nothing that doesn't fall under His direct will, anything
that happens on this planet. He's Lord. He really is Lord. You know, I love that. Most especially
is He Lord of salvation. That means if I'm saved, it's
because He willed to save me. And I know if He didn't will
to save me, I won't be saved. So I love His Lord, His sovereign
will in salvation. He's Lord. Grace be with all
them that love our Lord Jesus. I want to be careful every time
I use his name. I can't stand to hear religious
people use his name almost flippantly. Jesus this, Jesus that. But his
name is Jesus. Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. I love his name
Jesus, don't you? And we love his name as our Lord
Jesus Christ. The Christ, he's God's prophet. He's the very word of God. When
God speaks, the Lord Jesus Christ is the word that comes out of
his mouth. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.
Hear ye him. Oh, what a prophet bringing us.
He is the word of God. And what a priest. He's not like
any other priest who comes bringing animal sacrifices that could
never take away sins. He comes into the Father's presence
with his own blood and presents it to the Father and causes the
Father to smell a sweet smell toward everyone he represents
as the great high priest. How we love his kingship. He's the king of kings. He's
the Lord of lords. Grace be within that love our
Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Now, what does that look like? What does it look like when someone
loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity? Well, here is my first
point. His Word is precious to you. You cannot separate Jesus Christ
from His Word. His Word, everything He says,
and that includes everything in the Bible. He's the author
of it. His Spirit's the author of it.
But if I love Christ, His Word is precious to me. If a man loved
me, the Lord said, he'll keep my word. He'll guard over and
keep my word. Christ and his word, Christ and
this book we call the Bible is precious. I'm so thankful that
the Bible is the word of God. What you really think of God
is seen by what you think. of the words in this book, because
this book is his revelation of himself. And all we need is a
word from God, and we believe it. Whatever he says, we believe,
and his word is indeed precious to us. Our love to Christ is
seen in how we respond to this book. Now, Peter, when he's speaking
of the word of God, when he's speaking of the scriptures, when
he speaks of the promises of God, He calls them exceeding
great and precious promises. What a precious promise it is
that salvation is in Christ. That it's by grace. That He has
promised He'll never leave me or forsake me. How exceeding
precious are the promises. The salvation in Christ. Christ promising to be my surety
and taking full responsibility for my salvation. How precious
is that? That everything that the Father
looks to me for, He looks to His Son for. How precious is
that? Exceeding great and precious promises. And then, here's where
we learn from this word, Peter talks about precious blood. How precious of what infinite
value is the blood of Christ to you. Do you see His blood as precious
blood because of whose blood it is? Because of what He accomplished
by His shed blood? He actually made it to where
every believer stands before God without fault? How precious. And I like another term by Peter. calls faith like precious faith. Now, like, every believer's got
the same kind of faith. We all believe the same thing.
Someone says, I believe different than you do. Well, then you don't
believe the truth, then. Every believer believes the truth,
and they all believe the same thing. I mean, there's no difference.
We all look to Christ as all. Every single believer. But this
thing of faith, isn't it precious to be enabled to look away from
yourself and to look to Christ and know he's everything? That's
what faith is, it's not looking to yourself, it's looking to
Christ. And knowing that he is salvation, like precious faith.
And I love what he said in 1 Peter 2, verse seven, this all comes
from the word, unto you which believe, he is precious. Oh, he is precious. Now, to love him in sincerity,
first of all, is to love his word. You don't love his word,
you don't love him in sincerity. To love him in sincerity, secondly,
is to love his people. Now, you remember there in John
chapter 21, where three times the Lord asked Peter this question.
Why three times? Well, it could be because he
died three times. I don't know. I don't know what
all the Lord's reason is behind it, but three times he asked
him this question. Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou
me? Yea, Lord, feed my sheep. Simon, lovest thou me? Yea, Lord, feed my lambs. Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou
me? And the scripture says Jonah,
or Peter, was grieved that he'd asked the third time. And he
said, Lord, you know all things. And I love the way we can appeal
to the very omniscience of Christ. You know all things. You know
how weak I am. You know how sinful I am. You
know how I could, you know all about my denials of you. We could
go on down the list. You know all things. that you
know that I love your person. Feed my sheep. In as much as you've done it
to the least of these, my brethren, you've done it to me. And in
as much as you've done it not to the least of these, my brethren,
you've done it not to me. Sincere love to Christ is love
to his people. He that loveth him that begat,
loveth also him that is begotten of him. Now, don't you love anybody
who loves the Lord Jesus Christ? You find someone who loves the
Lord Jesus Christ, who loves his lordship, who loves his offices
as the Christ, who loves him as Jesus, the Savior. He loves
him. You know what? If you're a believer,
you love that person, don't you? You truly esteem that person. You love them. By this shall
all men know you're my disciples, by your love one toward another. Love, sincere love to Christ
is expressed in love to his people, and it's a love that only the
believer possesses. I've already read that scripture
in 1 John 4, 7. He that loveth is born of God. Everyone that loveth is begotten
of God, and every one of God's people love his people. Here's the third mark of sincere
love to Christ. And all of these are very important. Sincere love to Christ wants
to imitate him. Sincere, true, genuine love to
Christ wants to Well, how you doing there? I'm painfully aware
of how woefully I fall short, but I would be like him. I would imitate him. That's what I want. I want to
love him, and I want to imitate him in his love to his father. I want to imitate him in his
zeal for his father. The zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up. I want to imitate him in his
love to his people. Having loved his own which were
in the world, he loved them to the end. I want to imitate him
in his love for men. He's the one who truly loved
his neighbor as himself. I want to imitate him and his
love for sinners. I'm one of them. He said to be
the friend of publicans and sinners. Don't you want to be the sinner's
friend just like him? You can relate with him. I want to imitate
him in his humility. I want to imitate him in his
mercy. I want to imitate him in his
forgiveness. Somebody says, well, how have
you done? Bad. But I would be like him. Anybody
who loves him in sincerity wants to imitate him. Fourthly, sincere
love to him expresses itself in faithfulness. Sincere love to him always expresses
itself in faithfulness. They that are with him are called,
chosen, and faithful. The scripture is Revelation chapter
17, verse four. Now, what's that mean? Well, first of all, faithfulness
to his gospel. We gotta begin there because
if I'm not that, I don't have any sincere love to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Faithfulness to his gospel. You
know the gospel and you know what is not his gospel and you
discern the difference Now what makes people tolerant of that
which is not the gospel, which is contrary to the gospel? That
which makes people tolerant is a lack of sincere love for Jesus
Christ. You see, this is personal. It's
a person we worship. And it's very personal. And if
someone can tolerate that which is contrary to his glory, to
the truth of his gospel, there's no sincere love there. It's just
being indoctrinated in something. He is the gospel, and if I can
tolerate a false gospel, it's simply because I do not have
sincere love for the person of Christ. You can't love him and
tolerate that which brings him down. and that which is degrading
toward the glory of his person and the glory of his salvation.
You know, to fail to glory only in the cross? You know why somebody
would not glory only in the cross? They really have no sincere love
for his person. When Paul said in 1 Corinthians
2, 2, I've determined not to know anything among you, said
Jesus Christ, the uncrucified. Somebody that doesn't make that
determination, they have no sincere love for his person. This is
how important this is. Faithful to his glory. Faithful
to his gospel, faithful to his glory. The desire of your heart
is him getting all the glory. You say with David, not unto
us, not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name, give glory for
thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. I love what he says next. Wherefore should the heathen
say, where is now their God? The heathen comes up and says,
show me your God. What's he like? Give me some
proof. Give me some evidence. Our God is in the heavens. He
hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. You're in his hand right
now, whether you know it or not. That's who our God is. Prove
it. Don't need to. He's in the heavens. He has done
whatsoever he has pleased. And let me give you an illustration
of what I'm talking about. In the atonement of the Lord
Jesus Christ, it was not in any way a cooperative effort. He
didn't make salvation available to you, but it's up to you to
take it to make it work. And it's just thrown out there
in kind of a generic way. He died for everybody. And if
you'll just receive it, if you'll just accept him as your personal
savior, if you'll just take hold of it, you make it work. That
means his atonement, the success of his atoning death is dependent
upon something you do. You know what? If that's true,
you're the one getting the glory, not him. It really is that simple. If you love his person, he must
get all the glory because you love him. Now, faithful in assembling
yourselves together as a church. I think of what the writer of
the Hebrews said, forsake not the assembling of yourselves
together as the manner some is. Now, I don't want to be a preacher
that's always trying to guilt people into coming to church.
How come you weren't in church? No, I don't want to be that person
because that's As soon as a preacher starts trying to guilt everybody
and go in church, they don't really want to be there. I don't
either. Somebody starts guilting me, it's going to get on my nerves.
I know it does. If I ever do that, forgive me.
I know I've done it before probably, but I was thinking about this.
If I get upset about people not coming to church because they're
not coming to hear me preach. I prepared this sermon. Why aren't
they here to hear this sermon? Sorry, folks, I'm as vain as
the next guy. And if you're up here doing the
preaching, you'd be the same way. I guarantee you would. That's
just the nature of things. But there is something very special
about assembling with God's people. The Lord said, where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them. Now, if he's there, I want to
be there. This is where assembling yourselves
together comes in. He's here. He's promised. His
Word is being preached. Gene Rutledge, bless his heart,
one of my favorite people. I guess he's been dead five or
six years, but I used to love the way he'd say, I'm afraid
to miss because I'm afraid of what I'll miss out on. And I
thought, well, I would love to always have that attitude about
hearing the word of God. And then faithfulness is faithful
all the way to the end. You die loving Christ. You began to love Christ when
he gives you that love. That love continues. and you'll
die loving the Lord Jesus Christ. And you will spend eternity loving
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's love to Christ in
sincerity. Fifth, if you love Christ in
sincerity, it makes service to Christ a pleasure. Now let me show you this from
the scripture. Turn to 1 John chapter five. You know that prodigal son, his
brother, remember how he completely said, I've served you all these
years, you never gave me a kid. In other words, I don't really
like this service in the first place and you ought to be doing
something for me to make it more pleasant. Here I've sacrificed,
what a rotten attitude that guy had. But look at these words,
verse two of 1 John chapter five, by this we know that we love
the children of God. When we love God and keep his
commandments for this is the love of God, that we keep his
commandments and his commandments are not grievous, irksome. Now, if I tell you, you need to keep the 10 commandments. What's it do to you? Well, you
know you ought to keep them. You won't deny that. You need
to keep the Ten Commandments. You know what it does? It grieves you. You find it irksome. As a matter of fact, anytime
anybody tells me to do anything, I find it irksome. That's a bad way to be, I guess.
But if you put somebody under the law, they're going to come
out swinging. You need to do this. Well, I'll
show you. But His commandments, and let's
first identify what His commandments are. Look in 1 John 3, verse
23. This is His commandment, that
we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and
love one another as He gave us commandment. Is it not pleasant
and pleasurable to believe on the name of His Son? To believe
that His name brings me into heaven. That's not grievous. It's not grievous to love his
people as he gave his commandment. It is a pleasure to do so. Think of what the Lord said in
Matthew chapter 11, verse 28 through 30. He said, come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. And that's talking
about laboring under the burden of sin. That's always a burden,
isn't it? It's always a burden. Come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn
of me. For I am meek and lowly in heart,
and you'll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is what? Easy. And my burden is light. Isn't it a glorious, pleasurable
thing to be a disciple, a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? Love
to Christ and sincerity does that. Now, love, sincere love,
I'm talking about sincere love. Love to Christ, love and sincerity
desires and craves the approval of Christ. Now, if you love somebody,
you want their approval. And if you don't care anything
about their approval, I don't care where they approve me. You
don't love them. If you love somebody, you want them to be
approving of you. It's impossible to be indifferent
about somebody's approval if you really love them. I want
you all to approve of me. I want that. And I want to treat
you in such a way that that takes place. If I'm indifferent about
your approval, I don't really love you. Now, love to Christ
and sincerity is much more concerned about his approval than the approval
of any man. Now, I want you to approve of
me, but if Christ approves of me and you don't, I'm okay. Now, if Christ approves of you,
and I don't, you're okay, aren't you? We want his approval. How can you believe which receive
honor one of another and seek not that honor that comes from
God only? Paul said, if I yet please men,
I shouldn't be the servant of Christ. If man's approval was
more important to me than God's approval, all I would prove by
that is I don't really have a sincere love for his person. I think of the Jews. It says,
nevertheless, among the Jews, many believe, but because the
Pharisees, they wouldn't confess him, because they love the praise
of men more than the praise of God. It's what's called the lust
of the eyes, being more concerned about what men see than what
God sees. Sincere love to Christ craves
His approval. Now turn with me to Luke chapter
7. We're going to close with this. You know, even while I'm preaching
this message, I want to love him more. I really
do. Verse 36, Luke chapter 7. And one of the Pharisees desired
him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's
house and sat down to meet. And behold, a woman in the city
which was a sinner. She was a immoral woman. Some think even that she may
have been a prostitute. I don't know. She may have been,
but she was a sinner. She has something in common with
me. She was a sinner. When she knew that Jesus sat
at meat in the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster box
of ointment. and stood at his feet behind
him, weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did
wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and
anointed them with ointment." We don't read of anything she
said. As a matter of fact, I don't think she said anything. But
look at her actions. Now, when the Pharisee, which
had bidden him, saw it, he spake within himself, saying, this
man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner
of woman this is that touches them, for she's a sinner. You know, everyone the Lord was
around, everything they were thinking, he read the thoughts.
He knew everything that they were thinking. He knows everything
I'm thinking. He knows everything you're thinking right now, all
the time. And Jesus answering, verse 40,
said unto him, I have somewhat to say unto thee, and he said,
Master, say on. Teacher, say on. Didn't call
him Lord, called him teacher. He says, there was a certain
creditor which had two debtors. The one owed him 500 pence, and
the other 50. And when they had nothing to
pay, when they had nothing to pay. Where does that leave you? Are you one of these people?
When they had nothing to pay, he frankly, freely, graciously,
completely, forgave them both. You know when you're going to
be forgiven? When you have nothing to pay. If you have anything
to pay, you can forget forgiveness. But when you have nothing to
pay, he frankly, completely, graciously, freely forgave them
both. And then he asked this very simple
question, tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, well,
I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. And he said unto
him, thou hast rightly judged. And he turned to the woman and
said unto Simon, seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house,
thou gavest me no water from my feet. but she hath washed
my feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
Thou gavest me no kiss, but this woman since the time I came in
hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not
anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore,
I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. For she loved much, but to whom little is forgiven. The same loveth little. I stand as one who has been forgiven
much. What do you mean by that? Every
second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day, I need forgiveness. Regarding every action, every
deed, every thought, every motive, I need forgiveness. With regard to God's holy law, all I've done is broken it. I put other gods before him. I make gods that I feel more
comfortable with. I failed to Show the proper reverence for
his name. I've never arrested. I haven't honored my mother and
father. I murder. I've never physically murdered
anybody, but I've murdered plenty of people. I'm an adulterer. Guilty of lying. I'm a thief. I'm covetous. I'm not talking about the way
I used to be. I'm talking about the way I am right now. I have been forgiven much because
every breath I've ever taken has required forgiveness. You know, when people try to
brag about how sinful they were, I can't stand it. When somebody
gives some kind of super testimony, I used to be this and I used
to be that, but now I'm... No, nobody wants to listen to
that. That's foolishness. It's an exercise in trying to
glorify yourself. But I do stand, and I know everybody
in this room that believes the gospel stands as someone who
has been forgiven much. What language can I borrow to
thank thee, dearest friend? For this thy dying sorrow, thy
pity without end, oh, make me thine forever. And should I fainting
be, you can see that, can't you? Oh, let me never, never, outlive
my love for thee. Let's pray.