Paul said in 1 Corinthians 16.22, if any man love not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be accursed when Jesus comes. Now the end
of all true preaching, the object of all true preaching,
is to bring the repentant sinner to the feet of the Lord Jesus
Christ in faith, in hope, and in love. The Apostle Peter said,
he loves you, cast all your cares upon him, for he loves you, he
cares for you. The Lord Jesus Christ cares for
your soul. David said, no man cares for
my soul. Christ does. The Lord Jesus Christ
said, I am the good shepherd. I love my sheep. I lay down my
life for my sheep. Greater love hath no man than
this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Christ died
that I may live. He loves me. He cares for my
soul. In John 13, verse 1, it says,
having loved his own, he loved them to the end. Christ loves
me. He cares for my soul. He not
only cares for my soul, but he cares for my body. The Bible
tells me that the very hairs of my head are numbered. Our Lord said, O ye of little
faith. If the sparrow cannot fall to
the ground without your Heavenly Father, how much more important
are you than the sparrows? Consider the lilies of the field,
they coil not, neither do they spin, and yet Solomon in all
his glory was never clothed like a lily of the field. And the
birds of the air, God feeds them. Will He not so much more clothe
you and feed you? He cares for your body, O ye
of little faith. He said, I'll never leave you,
I'll never forsake you. He loves you. He cares for your
soul, He cares for your body. And the Lord Jesus Christ cares
about your family too. He cares about your home. Turn
with me to the book of Job. One of the most interesting scriptures
in the Bible is found in Job chapter 1, verse 10. And I confess unto you that I
was in the ministry several years before I ever saw this verse.
Job came, or rather Satan came and appeared before God to accuse
Job. And God said, Have you considered
Job? And Satan said that Job serve
the Lord because God supplied his needs, and God told him to
take everything away from him, and he'd still fear the Lord.
And in verse 9, Satan said, does Job fear God for nothing? He
has a reason to fear you. He has a reason to obey you. Hast not thou made an hedge about
him, a wall about him, a protective covering about him, and about
his house, and about all that he hath on every side?" Charles
Spurgeon used to say, I am immortal till God sees fit. And my family
is beyond the reach of disease and beyond the reach of death.
and beyond the reach of trial, unless it's in the will of the
Heavenly Father, if I'm one of his children. And that's what
even Satan is saying here about Job. He says the Lord has made
a wall about him, a protective wall about him, and about his
house and about everything that he has on every side. He cares
about your family. He cares about your home. He
cares about your children because He knows that you love them and
He loves you. They mean a great deal to you.
So the Lord Jesus loves His people. He cares for their souls and
He cares for their bodies and He cares for their homes and
their families and their children. We cannot reflect too much on
the love of Christ for you and for me. We love him because he
first loved us. Herein is love, not that we loved
him. He loved us. We have no reason
to boast of our love for Christ. If I boast at all, let me boast
in his love for me, not my love for him. The love of God is greater
far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the high
star and it reaches to the lowest hell. The guilty pair, Adam and
Eve, bowed down with care. God gave his son to win. The erring child, he reconciled
and pardoned from his sins. Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made? Were every stalk on earth
a quill, And every man a scribe by trade? To write the love of
God above would drain that ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain
the whole, though stretched from sky to sky. God's love for me and God's love
for you. That's not my subject tonight.
My subject is, if any man love not the Lord Jesus. But I dare
not begin a message on my love for Christ without talking first
about his love for me. because here in his love, not
that I love him, he loved me and gave himself for me, and
I'd rather talk about his love for us. I'd rather preach ten
sermons on the love of Christ for sinners, the love that brought
him from glory to this earth, the love that brought him through
the virgin's womb to the manger in Bethlehem, the love that brought
him from the carpenter's shop to Capernaum and Galilee, and
the shores of Judea, the love that took him to the agony of
Gethsemane's garden, the love that finally drove him to Calvary's
cross, and the love that took him to the tomb, and then raised
him from the dead, and the love that even now he has for me as
he intercedes at the Father's right hand for sinners who trust
Him and believe on Him and rest in Him. God's love for sinners. God's love for sinners gave His
Son. Christ's love for sinners gave
His life. And the Holy Spirit's love for
sinners gives us faith and repentance. But my subject tonight is my
love for Christ. Christ's love for me brought
Him to Calvary. The question tonight that I want
to ask for my text or topic is this. What will my love for Christ
do for me? Christ's love for me brought
him to Calvary to redeem my soul. Now if I love him, what will
that love do for me? And I want to give you six answers
to that question. There are a thousand, I know.
And you can, I'm sure, add to these, which I shall give tonight,
but I think this is a summary. Number one, if any man loved
the Lord Jesus Christ, that love which he has for Christ will
make the Word of God precious to him. Precious to him. I picked up a man's Bible a little
while ago, one that was left here in the church today, and
I looked through it, and I was delighted to find all the way
through the Bible that the scriptures were marked with a pen, and that
alongside in the margin were some notes, and by one scripture
underlined these words were written, Not my righteousness, but Christ's. And that thrilled my heart, because
I felt my ministry, at least to somebody, has been worthwhile.
if he has seen that it's not his righteousness but Christ's. And if he's seen it strongly
enough to write it in his Bible in the margin and to underline
the word Christ which was capitalized every letter and underline it
three or four times, the word of God becomes precious to the
believer. The man who loves Christ loves
Christ's word. There was a little girl who lost
her eyesight when she was just an infant. Something happened
when she was born, and she could not see. She was born to a very,
very poor family, and she could not see. And the little girl,
because the family was poor, went through her early childhood
sightless. And when she was about ten, eleven,
or twelve, some civic club in the city in which she lived,
finding out that this little girl had a chance to see through
an operation by a special expensive physician, footed the bill and
provided the money, and they operated on her eyes. She was
about 10 or 11 or 12 years of age. The operation the doctor
felt was successful, but the little girl's eyes were bandaged. so that she still could not see
after the operation. She was taken home from the hospital
with her eyes still bandaged. And the day came when the doctor
was going to remove the bandage. The doctor, the physician, being
interested in the case, came out himself to the home of the
little girl. It was in the summertime. The
grass was green, and the sky was blue, and the white, fleecy
clouds were floating overhead. The mother was a flower gardener,
and she had some beautiful roses, climbing roses in the backyard.
And the doctor suggested to the mother that they take the little
girl out in the backyard and remove the bandages, for he said,
I believe she's going to be able to see for the first time. And
I'd like for her view of this world to be a beautiful view. Let the first thing she sees
be God's nature, the grass and the flowers and the blue skies.
And he said, Mother, put on your nicest dress, and Daddy, put
on your Sunday suit, and let's go out in the garden. So they
went out and sat the little girl down in a chair. The mother and
father got in front of her, standing there in front of the rose garden.
The grass was green like a carpet on the ground, the sky was blue
and red and pink, and orange colored roses were behind the
parents. The doctor stepped behind the
little girl and he clipped the bandage. And they fell away from
her eyes and she blinked a few times. And then she opened her
eyes, and she looked first at her daddy and then at her mother,
and then all about her, and they all held their breath. And as
they looked at her, tears began to trickle down her cheeks. And
her mother was fearful something was wrong, and she ran to her
and threw her arms around her and said, Honey, what's wrong?
She said, Mama, why didn't you tell me it was so beautiful?
Why didn't you tell me?" And the mother, crying too, said,
My darling, I tried to tell you. I tried my best to tell you,
but you couldn't see. You were blind. And my friends, these words in
this book are beautiful to people who have eyes. The histories, the sacrifices,
the precepts and the promises, the doctrines and the prophecies
of God's word will all have an interest and a beauty to you
as you find them have reference to Christ. Oh, the beauty of
his covenant, the beauty of his coming. the beauty of his redemption,
the beauty of his salvation, the beauty of his glory. If you love Christ, everything
that relates to Christ will have a charm for you. That is, if
you can see, the Apostle Peter says they're precious promises. The rich man counts his money
and his gold because he sees a beauty in those material things. The movie star and the Broadway
star stands in front of the mirror and looks upon his image or her
image because they see beauty in those physical things. But
the child of God who's been given eyes to see beyond the material
and beyond the physical, who like Abraham can see that city
not made with hands but built by God, he sees beauty in spiritual
things. He sees a charm and a beauty
and a glory about the Word of God that a blind sinner cannot
see. And it takes a divine operation
by the Spirit of the living God to give those eyes. Don't you
know that little girl, it took her a long time to get enough
of looking at those roses? Don't you know it took her a
long time to get enough of looking at that blue sky? Don't you know
it took her a long time to get enough of sitting down on that
green carpet of grass and running her hands over it? Don't you
know it took her a long time to get enough of looking into
the face of her parents and into the face of that beloved physician
who had given her eyes? And I'll tell you, I don't believe
eternity itself will give us enough time to satisfy the desire
which we have to look into the face of Jesus Christ and behold
his glory. And I don't believe a lifetime
on this earth will give us enough time to get all of the riches
and glory and treasures out of this book. It never gets tiresome,
never does, if you love him about whom it's all written. He said
to the Pharisees, you search the For in them you think you
have life, but they are they which testify of me." That's
what it's all about. It's about Christ. If you love
Him, you'll have to read about Him. Every time your son or daughter
gets his name in the paper on the honor roll, do you look it
up? Do you like to read about it? Sure you do. Well, my Lord, this is his honor
roll right here, and his name's on every page, and I sure like
to read about it. And then secondly, love for Christ
will endure his people to you. Love for Christ will endear his
people to you. You cannot love Jesus Christ
if you do not love his people. Impossible. John said, You cannot
love God whom you have not seen if you do not love your brother
whom you have seen. By this Christ said, Shall all
men know you are my disciples? by this shall they know you are
my disciples." Now you can be a disciple of the Baptist church
and not love the brethren. You can be a disciple of some
evangelist and not love the brethren. You can be a disciple of some
denomination and not love the brethren, but you can't be his
disciple and not love the brethren. Because he said, this is the
characteristic, this is the mark of my disciples. They love one
another. Why do they love one another?
These people are the purchase of his agonies. These people
are the objects of his dying love. These people are precious
in his sight, and he has shown his love for them by what he
gave for them. And brother, they'll be precious
in your sight too, because they're precious in his sight. And another
reason why you'll love them is not only you have the same Savior,
but you have the same Father. And not only do you have the
same Father, but you have the same desires. And not only do
you have the same desires, but you have the same interests.
And Christ said, inasmuch as you did it or did it not to the
least of these my brethren, you did it or did it not to me. That's how close they are to
him. What you do for them, you do
for him. The Apostle Paul, before God
brought him to faith in Christ without killing Christians, persecuting
Christians. And when he met the Lord Jesus
Christ, our Master said to him, Paul, why persecutest thou me?"
See, you remember that, what you do to one of his children,
you do to him. And what you do not do to one
of his children, you do not do to him. Listen how strongly Paul
puts it in 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 7. He's talking to the
church at Thessalonica. This puts us to shame. In 1 Thessalonians
2, verse 7, Paul said, We were gentle among you, even as a nurse
cherished her children. So being affectionately desirous
of you, I was willing to have imparted unto you not the gospel
of God only, but also my own soul. You were that dear unto me."
That's when Paul said, I could wish, I could have wished myself
a curse from Christ for my brethren. For he said, I would not only
have given you the gospel, but I would have given my own soul
for you. If Christ so loved us, we ought
to love one another. All right, thirdly, if a man
loves Christ, that love for Christ will cause him to want to imitate
Christ. Now, our Lord was a man, but
he was also God. And I'm not so foolish as to
think that I, a human being who am a man but not God by any measure,
I'm not so foolish as to think that I can in the flesh imitate
God Almighty. He was without even the thought
of sin. He was impeccable. He was without
the possibility of sin. He had sinned, but they weren't
his. They were mine and yours. He
was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. In the likeness of sinful
flesh. He never knew what it was to
sin. Christ never knew what it was to even think of sin. Impossible. Impossible. But you and I are
commanded to love one another as Christ loved us. And you and I are commanded in
the Word of God to walk as Christ walked. And you and I are commanded
in the Word of God to forgive one another as Christ forgave
us. And we're commanded in the word
of God to be holy as God is holy. And we're commanded in the word
of God to be merciful as we have received mercy. And it is said
in God's word, let this mind be in you which was also in the
mind, was the mind of Jesus Christ. The mind of humility and submission
to the will of the Father. Christ is my perfect example. And I can accept no less an example
than Christ. I cannot shoot for any goal less
than perfection. I've got to shoot for it. Are
you perfect? By no means, but I'm going to
be someday. My goal will be realized, my
ambition will be realized when I am made in his likeness. And then in the fourth place,
love for Christ will make me faithful. It will make me, first of all,
faithful to his gospel. Listen to Paul, I am determined
to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Determined. We preach not ourselves,
Paul said. We preach Jesus Christ our Lord. And if a man loves Christ, it
will make that man faithful to the gospel of Christ. It will
make me faithful in preaching it. It will make you faithful
in supporting it. It will make you faithful in
hearing it. It will make you faithful in
discriminating between that gospel and a false gospel. Ralph Barnard used to say that
the man who supports a minister who does not preach the gospel
in the judgment of God will be held as accountable as that minister. It's the same as driving a car
for a bank robber. You didn't hold the gun, and
you didn't take the money, and you didn't rob the bank, but
you provided him transportation. And I guarantee you, when you
stand before the judge, He'll sentence you right along with
the bank robber if you drove the car. And when you provide
a minister of Satan with transportation and with provisions to preach
a false gospel, you are as accountable before God Almighty as the man
who preaches the false gospel. When you support and keep on
the field missionaries who do not preach Jesus Christ and him
crucified you are before God as accountable as the man who's
doing the false preaching. It's serious business. That's
what the Bible says. If they come not with this gospel,
do not bid them Godspeed, and don't let them in your house. If I love Christ, I'll be faithful
to his gospel. I've had people ask me, well,
Brother Mann, do you believe that there are preachers who
really love the Lord who compromise the gospel? I just don't see
how, do you? I believe if a man loves Christ,
he'll be faithful to his gospel. I don't believe he'd lie on the
Lord. I don't believe you'd lie on me, would you? If you loved
me, would you tell a lie on me? And I don't believe you'd lie
about the Lord, would you, if you loved him? And I believe
you'd be faithful to his glory. Turn to Colossians chapter 1.
I believe if a man loves the Lord, he'll not only be faithful
to his gospel, he'll be faithful to his glory. He wants the Lord
to get all the glory. in Colossians chapter 1, it says
in verse 16, it's on that Christ. for by him were all things created
that are in the heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they're thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things were created by him and for him, and he's before
all things, and by him all things consist, and he's the head of
the body of the church who is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in all things he, by have the preeminence. I want him on the throne, don't
you? And I want every knee bowing and I want every tongue confessing
that he's Lord. I don't want to hear men sing
the praises of this congregation or this pastor. I want them to
sing the praises of our Lord. And I believe if a man loves
Christ, he'll be jealous of Christ's glory. The desire of his heart
will be not to call attention to himself, but to call attention to his
Lord. And then I believe if a man loves
the Lord, he'll be faithful not only to the gospel and faithful
to the Lord's glory, but I believe he'll be faithful to the Lord's
assembly. It says in Hebrews 10, verse
25, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. We're
going to have to consider one another, to provoke unto love
and to good works. We're going to have to exhort
one another, and weep with one another, and encourage one another,
and teach one another. Don't forsake the assembling
of yourselves together, as the manner of some is. And so much
more as we see that day approaching. I believe we'll be faithful to
the holy calling, and I believe we'll be faithful to the end
if we love Christ. I don't know just how firmly
to say this, but I want to say it as firmly as I can without
being brutal and without being cruel. He that endureth to the end,
the same shall be said. It's not who starts this race,
and it's not who's running real hard past the first quarter pole,
and it's not who's faithful for the first ten years of his profession. Those who are ultimately and
eternally saved are those who die in the faith. That's right. It's not the ones that make the
most noise, it's the ones that cross the finish line. Paul said
that. Who's crowned in a race? The
fellow that finishes the race. Not the one who ran strongly
for a little while, but the one who finished. And Paul at the
end of his life said, the time of my departure is at hand, I've
fought a good fight, I've finished my course, I've kept the faith. And I'm telling you, we're living
in a day and most preachers don't seem to be alarmed about it. That's what discourages me. They don't seem to be alarmed
about it. They don't seem to be alarmed about the fact that
they keep having additions to the church and they keep baptizing
people and folks keep coming by letter but the attendance
doesn't grow. They don't seem to be alarmed
about the fact that they have six, seven, eight, nine hundred
members and there are only about fifty, sixty people out for prayer
meetings. And there are only about seventy-five,
eighty or a hundred out for the evening service. And there are
about one-third of the church members in the Sunday morning
service. That doesn't seem to alarm them. That scares me to
death. I'd figure I was one of those
false prophets Christ was talking about in Matthew, in the Sermon
on the Mount, when he said this. beware of false prophets. By
their fruits you shall know them." Now, what's the fruit of a preacher?
It's his converts. That's what it is. It's the people
who are saved under his ministry. That's his fruit. It's the people
who hear him preach. It's the people who support him.
It's the people who follow his ministry and learn from him.
That's his fruit. And you'll know a false preacher
by his fruits. And when his converts don't know
anything about God, and don't know anything about the gospel,
and don't know anything about Christ, and don't know anything
about substitution, and are not faithful in their lives, and
in their giving, and in their attendance, and in their holiness,
and in their walk, and in their honesty, And in their neighborhood
and in their families, when his converts and his fruits are not
faithful, he's a false prophet. There are not a whole lot of
folks walking now around here, but I'll guarantee you this,
those who do, they're still here. They're still here five years,
ten years, fifteen years, not all of them. The Lord had twelve,
and one of them was a devil. And the early church didn't have
a whole lot of members, but Ananias and Sapphira were there, and
Simon Magus was there. There's a few here and there,
but I'm talking about the general run. I'm talking about the majority. I'm talking about the average
preacher in this area right here. Most of his converts are not
with him today. They're out there somewhere.
I saw they've been in church for a few weeks or a few months
or a few years. And then where are they? Where
are the church members? They're not in church. They're
not worshiping God. They don't know anything about
the Bible. They'd probably look for the
Book of Thessalonians over in the Old Testament and probably
look for Hezekiah all day and couldn't find him. But they'd
try. Like one man said in Sunday school
class, he hadn't been there in a long time, and the teacher
opened it for questions and answers, and he said, Teacher, how far
was it from Dan to Beersheba? And the teacher said, Well, I
don't know. He said, I thought there was husband and wife like
Sodom and Gomorrah. Love to Christ will make you
faithful to the end. You'll be a Christian when you
die, if you're one now. That's so. Folks that love Christ
don't quit Christ. A man might quit his wife, but
he'll never quit Christ. A boy may leave home, but if
he loves Christ, he'll never leave Christ. He can't do it. Christ means more to him than
mom and daddy, husband, wife, brother, sister, his own life
also, or he's not Christ's disciple. That's so. The fifth thing, love
to Christ, will make his service a pleasure. In Matthew 11, turn
over there with me just a minute. Verse 28 and 29, Matthew chapter
11, Christ said in verse 29, Take my yoke upon you, and learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest
unto your souls. Watch it now. My yoke is easy,
and my burden is light. What is the yoke of Christ? We
put a yoke on oxen, and they work for you. And Christ puts
a yoke on his people. But I'll tell you, the service
of Christ is no, it's no task, it's no duty, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Oh, my friends,
somebody said the galley slave chained to his oar. is no more
pitiful than the church member trying to serve God out of fear
and duty. That old galley slave down there
chained to the oar, rowing in the hole of that old ship is
no more pitiful than the church member who's trying to serve
a God he doesn't love and a Christ he doesn't know, trying to reach
a heaven he'll never see. what drudgery it is to work where
love does not exist, and what joy it is to serve out of a heart
of love. I delight to do thy will, O God. I delight. Turn to Acts chapter
21. Listen to Paul over here. I tell
you, I read this verse of Scripture over and over again. Paul was
about to go to Jerusalem, and they knew he was going to be
going to be captured there and put in barns and chains and put
in jail. And they began to weep, these
fellows did, and tried to get him not to go. And verse 13 of
Acts 21, Paul answered and said, What mean ye to weep and to break
my heart? I am ready not to be bound only,
I am ready to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Don't weep for me." Before Brother Walter Groover
went to Mexico, he had some little children. And some of the people,
well-meaning people down in the churches of Texas, tried to persuade
him not to go. For they said to him, Think about
your children, Walter, taking them down there to a strange
land. Well, Walter, they won't get
any education. They won't have a nice home.
They won't have all these things. Think about them. Paul said,
My friend, Why do you weep and try to break my heart? I'm ready
not only to go to Jerusalem and be bound, I'm ready to go to
Jerusalem and die for my Lord. That's how much I love him." And then Job said, "...the Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of
the Lord." And in all this, Job didn't charge God with foolishness. And then last of all, turn to
1 Corinthians 4. If I love Christ, I love his
word, I love his people, his yoke will be easy and his burden
will be light. And then 1 Corinthians 4 verse
3. If I love Christ, I seek his
approval and not the approval of this world. In 1 Corinthians
4, Paul said in verse 3, With me it is a very small thing that
I should be judged of you, or of any man's judgment. Yea, I
judge not my own self. I know nothing by myself, Yet
am I not hereby justified, he that judges me is the Lord." It means very little to me, Paul
said, that I should be judged in the court of your opinion,
roasted on the fires of your disagreement. That doesn't mean
a great deal to me, but he said the judgment of the Lord does.
It means an awful lot. If I seek to please men, I am
not the servant of Christ. If I am the servant of Christ,
I will seek the divine approval of my blessed Lord. I dread his
plans. So in faith, in love, in grace,
in mercy, in life, in death, I seek his divine approval. if I pastor the biggest church
in the world and lose my soul. What shall it profit me if I'm
the most popular minister, or you're the most popular individual
in your city, if I lose my soul? What shall it profit me if I'm
the wealthiest, best-dressed man in the community, if I lose
my soul? What shall it profit me if I
gain the happiness and treasures and wealth of this world and
ten thousand other worlds if I lose and damn my soul. So Paul says it matters very
little to me what men think. The Lord that judges me And the
Lord judges me on the basis of His Son's blood and righteousness,
and I'm true to that gospel. Are you? Our Father in Heaven,
help us to fall in love with Christ. make the very beat of
our heart to be the name of our Lord. If we love him, his word
will be precious. If we love him, his people will
be precious. If we love him, we will be faithful,
not only to his gospel and to his glory, but to the end. If
we love him, his service is easy, and the burden is light, and
the trials are not too heavy to bear. If they're laid on our
backs by the hand of our loving Lord, we bear them cheerfully. if we love him. And if we love
not the Lord Jesus Christ, thy word has said, let him be accursed
when Jesus comes. So we want here to hear him say,
well done, thou good and faithful servant, thou'st been faithful
over few things, I'll make thee ruler over many. Bless the word,
our heart. Break our heart. Bring us down
in the dust at thy feet where we belong. Always looking into
the face of our beloved. In his name we pray. Amen.