Agape Love & What It Means (11/07/1999)

Park Meadows Church

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in verse 15. We've been talking about the love of God lately.

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We've been specifically talking about agape love and what it means and we went through 1st

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Corinthians chapter 13 and looked at God's definition for what His kind of love is and this morning

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I want to take a look at an interesting passage here. We've talked about this with our young people in the school on Mondays during the devotions and it seems like every time we talk about it we bring out or something or the

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Lord brings to light something new and powerful and so let's look at this one more time this morning starting with verse 15 in John chapter 21 follow along with me it says so when they had dined

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Jesus saith unto Simon Peter Simon son of Jonas lovest thou me more than these he saith unto him yea

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Lord thou knowest that I love thee he saith unto them him feed my lambs and he saith unto him again the second time

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Simon son of Jonas lovest thou me and he saith unto him yea Lord thou knowest that I love thee he saith unto him feed my sheep he saith unto him the third time

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Simon son of Jonas lovest thou me Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time lovest thou me and he said unto him

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Lord thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee Jesus saith unto him then feed my sheep now

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I wants to go a little bit further in this passage look at the next verse barely barely

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I say unto thee when thou was young and thou girdest thyself and walkest whither thou wouldest but when thou shalt be old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee and carry thee whether thou woulds not this said he signifying by what death he should glorify

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God now look at this last sentence and when he had spoken all these things to Peter he said unto him follow me now

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I want us to go back and look at this again you go back to verse 15 we discussed this last time if you look at the

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Greek language which is the language that God brought his word to us in in the

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New Testament we see that it is a much more specific language than the

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English language it gives you colors of meaning where English just kind of puts it out there in grays and we understand in the

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Greek language there are at least three words for the word love whereas in English is we just call it love and we've been discussing that for some weeks now the highest form of God of love is

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God's love and we know that the scripture says God is love and in the scriptures when that word is used it is the word agape and we've we've understood through the weeks that agape is such a love that it does not depend upon the object of the love it depends on the character of the lover and it is also a type of love that does not respond to the one that it loves because it doesn't need to respond because it comes from the will so agape love is a choice and it is when one purposes to love the other and really the only genuine form of agape love must come from God he's the only one capable of loving in that manner but what's wonderful about that is as we are filled with the

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Holy Spirit then we have that capability to love one another that way in fact

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Jesus said this is what I want you to do it's a new commandment he says I want you to love one another because this is how the world will see that you are my disciples so the greatest witness you can have is not on Thursday night going out witnessing the greatest witness you can have is to love one another with that kind of love now another thing we've learned as we studied through 1st

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Corinthians 13 and we saw all the different forms of that love it was really quite convicting to me and I think to some of you because sometimes when you preach and you notice it gets kind of quiet out there you may not have even thought it would be that way when you were preparing the message and all of a sudden

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God comes down and it just gets real quiet people are thinking and really what

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I think happened is as we looked at what love was and we looked at ourselves and we let this

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Bible be a mirror where we look at ourselves we saw that we weren't doing those things to one another and we were compelled to admit that the only time that we don't bear all things for example the only time that we don't have patience with one another for example is when we're in the flesh so if we look at love it is a marvelous reflector of when we're in the flesh and when we're in the spirit when we're spirit -filled when we're carnal it is impossible to love with God's love in the flesh and so when we find that we are able to love one another with that kind of love we are walking in the spirit and it's a good barometer of that now what

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I found was interesting if you look at this passage in John 21 starting verse 15 when

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Jesus asks him do you love me he says do you agape me so let's let's look at this look at verse 15 the first time he says

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Simon's son of Jonas lovest thou me Jesus says do you love me with agape love and you miss this in the

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English but Peter answers it yea Lord thou knowest that I love thee but that's not really what he said in the

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Greek language he said a different word he did not say I agape you he said

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I phileo you and in Greek the word phileo means to be fond of or to like someone or to have a friendship type fondness with someone it does not mean to have that deep eternal love of God for someone so Jesus says

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Peter do you love me with that deep eternal kind of love that I have for you and Peter says well sure

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Jesus I'm fond of you isn't that an amazing thing when you know that's what he said at least he told the truth didn't he because he could not say truthfully

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I agape you Jesus he couldn't say it so he didn't he changed the subject he said well I like you a lot and then

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Jesus comes back the second time and he says Peter do you agape me with that abiding love that God has and that you can only have in God Peter comes back says

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I don't know why you keep asking me this you know that you're a friend of mine do you see the significance but this is what

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I found to be very unusual and to be frank I had overlooked it but look at this let's go down to the third time look at verse 17

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Jesus saith unto him a third time Simon son of Jonas lovest thou me and Peter was grieved about it and he comes back says the same thing you know

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I like you but what is very fascinating about this is when you look at the third time when

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Jesus says Simon do you love me Jesus changed the word from agape to the word

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Peter had been using he said twice do you agape me

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Peter answered twice I like you a lot and the third time

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Jesus turns around and says do you like me now that's interesting to me and Peter says well you know all hearts you know that I'm fond of you you know that I like you you know that I'm your friend and I would just ask this morning what do you think is the significance of the fact that Jesus changed to the next level of love and matched what

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Peter was saying that he had which was friendship or a fondness and he asked him do you really have that for me and Peter says you know my heart you know that I do well

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I think there's a great clue to this found in verse 19 and that's why I wanted to read a couple of extra verses let's look at verse 19 this spake

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Jesus and so he had spoken all these things to to Peter to teach him something and at the conclusion of the lesson

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Jesus does one more thing he looks at Peter he had already told him feed my lambs and feed my sheep and now he adds this follow me now here again the

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English loses the meaning almost entirely but I want to give you the Greek word for the word follow in this verse it is the word oco

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Lutheo you don't have to pronounce it or say it if you want to write it down I'll spell it for you you got a piece of paper about this long it's a ko l -o -u -t -h -e -o oco

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Lutheo now as you know most Greek words consist of at least two smaller

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Greek words because that's how we get the specificity we can get down and get very specific by combining other words smaller words that are simpler and we know exactly what they mean and you put them together to make this word and God uses that to give us the colors of the meaning and oco

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Lutheo the first word is actually the first letter a are in Greek alpha and it is understood by the

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Greek mind that the letter alpha symbolizes and always stands for the concept of union or unity oneness because it's the first letter and so the first word in this is alpha which is really just a letter it's the a or the ah sound and in oco

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Lutheo and the second part of that word means simply a road or a highway and so what we get when we put this together it means to walk down the same road together it means to walk together in unity it means to be in the same way with to accompany it's translated as we see here in English the bland word follow but it means so much more than that it literally means this

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Jesus asks him do you a gop a me and he said well I like you ask him again do you a gop a me with that deep abiding eternal love of God and Peter comes back says well you know

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I'm fond of you I've you're a good friend of mine Jesus comes back and says what do you really like me

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Peter says well you know that I do and Jesus said well I'll tell you what then walk in the same road with me now that was just about the last thing that Peter heard before he was transformed from a naked fisherman who had backslidden to a man who preached a sermon and 3 ,000 souls were saved at one moment and then a little bit later maybe less than a week later he preached another one in 5 ,000 people were saved under that one sermon 8 ,000 people were added to the to the early church within a matter of days through this man's preaching what do you think changed what changed between the time that he denied

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Christ three times Jesus looked at him the third time and he saw those piercing eyes and it crushed him and he went out and just got away and said

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I quit and he got in the boat went out there and began to fish and all the sudden Jesus appears on the shore after the resurrection

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Peter recognizes him and they have this conversation do you love me do you love me what do you like me feed my sheep feed my lambs walk in the same path with me

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I think there's something here that we might ask ourselves this morning do

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I like God we've been talking about the love of God we know that the greatest commandment is to love

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God with all of our mind with all of our heart with all of our strength and we know that's the greatest commandment but I ask you this morning do you like the

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Lord Jesus Christ I want to ask you a question this morning what happens when you like somebody

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Dennis I've been picking on you this morning tell me what happens when you like somebody brother

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Otis has taught me something if you just ask everybody so you have to call out name somebody I'll answer it I mean okay all right okay

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Jeannie you tell me something that if you like somebody tell me something you do with them okay he said fellowship and you said

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I like to be with them and you said some other good things but that's the answer I was looking for fellowship and you like to be with them so wouldn't you agree with this it's universal if you like somebody you want to be with them is that right if you don't like somebody you know you'll say hi to him but you don't want to just spend every day with him right you want to live in the house with him well that's true all right let me take it a step further if you if it's true that if you like someone you want to spend time with them and be in their presence let me ask you this what happens when you spend a lot of time with somebody

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Jenny carry you can collaborate

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Jenny you can ask carry what happens and Paul you can give them the answer because they probably won't get it now it's it's it's really simple think about it if you spend a lot of time with a person what happens to you very good you become like them you talk to them a lot you are with them a lot and you know what they say about a lot of couples including me and my wife you begin to look like each other

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I'm getting prettier every day the only case

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I know where that's not true is with brother Otis so you need to spend more time with your wife brother

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Otis he'll get me this afternoon don't worry he's got the mic this afternoon now all right turn to James chapter 2 verse 21 why do you think it is that Jesus asked him do you like me and then after that he said then walk down the same path with me stay in the same path with me walk with me spend time with me

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James chapter 2 this whole passage here starting the verse 14 is always fascinated me and I don't know if you know it or not but the the great

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Martin Luther who God used to bring the world out of the darkness of Roman Catholicism out of the

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Dark Ages into the period of the Enlightenment and it hit it covered all areas of human existence from science to art literature but especially to religion where he understood the concept of walking by faith but this great man

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Martin Luther did not believe that the book of James was should be counted as part of the canon you know what

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I mean by that Martin Luther didn't think James ought to be in the Bible why do you think that is the light that God turned on in Martin Luther's head was the righteous live by faith walk by faith and when he looked in here and he saw a passage in James chapter 2 that starts out like this what does it profit my brethren though a man say he hath faith and hath not works can faith save him he's saying that contradicts

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I'm ripping those out it's not supposed to be there now the truth is the great in fact the entirety of Christendom disagrees with Martin Luther on that and witnesses to the fact that James is part of the inspired scriptures it's just that Martin Luther didn't spend a lot of time there he liked

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Romans a lot better but James is amazing and as we bring into the mix and we understand

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Romans teaches salvation by faith and we look at this James God uses used him as a penman to give us

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God's mind on what faith really is and what it's not and if there is ever a generation that needs that it's this generation in America because in America people believe that salvation comes by believing in any

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Jesus that one would invent in his mind you know the Bible says there are many

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Jesus's many Gospels and many spirits and I believe that this country is full and our churches across this nation are full of people who believe in a

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Jesus Christ that they invented in their own mind it's a Jesus who does not have a walk with them it's a

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Jesus that even if they did walk with him he would not change their lives because they like their lives and it's a

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Jesus that they invented because this particular Jesus will supposedly save them from hellfire but allow them to live like a devil while on the earth that's not the

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Jesus of the Bible the Jesus of the Bible will look at you right square in the eye and say do you love me and if you answer it no he'll say do you like me and if you answer yes he'll say then you get right with me and walk down this path of life in my path with me hand -in -hand and spend time with me and see what happens that's not the

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Christianity of today unfortunately in many quarters but this is the Christianity of the book of James so I want to use this idea to bring into this concept of faith and works and how they work together so look with me at James chapter 2 in verse 21 was not

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Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar seest thou how faith wrought with his works and by works was faith made perfect and the scripture was fulfilled which saith

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Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness and look at this phrase right here and he was called the friend of God guess what that word is in the

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Greek language the word for friend phileo it's the same word that's translated love when

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Jesus asked him the third time do you like me are you fond of me are you my friend same word so it says that whatever this was that Jesus was inquiring of Peter is the same thing that Abraham had it was the a friendship with God now notice this we're always looking at this verse verse 23 and it says

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Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him as righteousness and we talk about the doctrine of imputation the fact that that with his children what

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God has done is he has taken your sins and mine and placed them in the body of Christ on that cross and he took the very righteousness and goodness and purity of Jesus Christ in the life of Jesus Christ in place them in us at the point of salvation that's the doctrine of imputation and we talk about that a lot and we talk about the fact that at the point of your salvation

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God imputes to you the very righteousness of Jesus Christ but we don't talk about the fact that it also says in verse 23 that he imputed unto you a friendship that you never had before and the scripture was fulfilled which saith

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Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness and and there is no punctuation in the

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Greek language here in the English we have a colon which would cause us to pause in the

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Greek we have no punctuation there is no pause it says that it was imputed unto him for righteousness that's one thing and to be a friend of God that's another thing so that's something that God gave us at the moment of salvation that we had never had before in fact the

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Bible says clearly in the book of Ephesians that we were enemies of God we were aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel we were afar off we hated

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God we were dead we were blind we were deaf and at that moment of salvation the light came on and at the moment of salvation our sins were imputed to Jesus Christ and in fact of the matter if you study carefully you'll see that your sin that you were in Christ when he was crucified if you belong to him but you know what at the moment that the light comes on when you figured all that out you didn't figure it all out but you you saw that you were the

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Lord's for the first time in your life as of that moment you not only had all of the righteousness of Jesus Christ in you but you became the friend of God now what would this accomplish for us well this presents a thought to me anyway and maybe some of you are already getting ahead of me thinking this that there is a relationship of friendship with God and this relationship is interrelated with our concepts of faith and works and how they fit together now wouldn't you agree that faith is a gift from God if you were in Sunday school you studied it already this morning now so I can't preach about it a lot it's already been taken this morning but in Romans 12 3 and Philippians 129 and many other places it clearly says that saving faith is a gift that God gives you and you cannot work it up in the flesh you can't sit here and say okay

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I believe I believe I believe I can move this mountain and go in the sea that's not true faith that's carnal did you know that even repentance itself the

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Bible teaches is a gift from God you remember when it says Esau wept with tears and tried to repent but he found no repentance he tried and couldn't do it repentance comes from God faith comes from God faith is a gift from God to his own and at the moment they receive that gift they can believe for the first time in their lives a lost man can't believe in God it's impossible he's dead he's blind he's deaf he's an enemy he's an alien and when that gift is given all of the sudden a person believes is saved and so faith is a gift from God now what's interesting though as we study this passage we find out that the purpose of saving faith is not to avoid hell wouldn't you agree with me that the great doctrine of today is come down and receive no come down and accept the

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Lord Jesus is how they word it you make the choice you decide whether you'll accept him or not and if you do you can avoid hell now if you will repeat this prayer after me dear

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Jesus come in my heart and save me amen shake my hand if you meant that now you're going to avoid hell let me ask you a question today if you died today would you be 100 % sure that you would avoid hell that's the question we ask them isn't it and that's not what salvation is for faith its purpose is not the avoidance of hell let me prove that to you look here in James where we are and look at James chapter 2 verse 14 what doth it profit my brethren though a man say he hath faith and hath not works can faith save him faith is not the avoidance of hell what is the purpose of faith well it is that we may live unto

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God this living involves performing good works bearing fruit walking down the same road with Jesus faith is all about life the faith that comes from God imparts the life of God to us we've turned it into a religion we've turned

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Christianity into a religion in the last 25 years it's a religion very similar to Roman Catholicism where we have formulas of prayer to try to save people we have times when we go out to try to save people very much like Constantine tried to take the branches and dip them in the river and as the soldiers of Rome would walk by they would scatter the water on them and they proclaimed them to be

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Christians we Baptists do that with our little prayer formulas all the time and we think in our minds and we get the concept that faith is to save people from hell there was a very interesting question asked in Sunday school and I hate to ask it in here because if you hadn't been coming you won't even understand it but the question was something along these lines will there be any potential

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Christians in hell well I give you one guess no the answer is no there will not be any potential

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Christians in hell because if you've been here for this study of God's love you found out from Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 6 and many many many many many many other verses we've been through I almost spoke in tongues did you notice that we even talked about that while we studied love you learn that before time

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God set his love upon you if you're his today if you can look in your heart and say

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I know I belong to Jesus Christ and I will promise you the Bible says before time he set his love upon you and loved you and knew you what's fascinating about it is when you start to contemplate that God is outside of time there was never a time when he didn't love you there was never a start to that love there was only a start to you knowing about it and that's the day you got saved now if people could go back and understand those basic things the immutability of God the fact that God cannot change the eternal nature and the faithfulness of God and all of that is tied up in agape that that when the

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Bible says God is love it doesn't say that he can love you or that he has love for you he is love and God is eternal and God does not love those who will be in hell

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I don't care who told you that it is not true show it to me in this book he does not love those who will be in hell he knows who they are now he tells us to love our enemies because we don't know we're not

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God but God is holy and righteous and omniscient and all -powerful and perfectly right in all that he does and perfectly loving and perfectly kind and gentle hearted and all that he does and he knows what's best for everything that he's made but I'll tell you this if you're saved this morning if you've got

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Jesus in your heart this morning there was never a time when that love started because it's always been there for you and God's heart now so the purpose of saving faith is not to keep you from hell you were never going there you were never going to hell not in reality now you've been taught that you were headed straight for hell

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I know that I've been taught the same thing I've probably taught it myself but as we study and get in the word we grow don't we you weren't headed for hell so your faith didn't save you from hell what did it do it gave you his life it imparted the life of Jesus Christ to you it caused you to want to have good works to bear fruit to walk down the same path with him let me give you another proof of it look at James chapter 2 verse 17 and 18 even so faith if it hath not works is dead being alone yea a man may say thou hast faith and I have works show me thy faith without thy works and I will show thee my faith by my works now look at Ephesians 2 10 or don't take time to do let me just read it to you all have it memorized most of you

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Ephesians 2 8 is one of the most famous verses in the Bible at least among we

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Baptists it says for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast but the next verse says this for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus does it say to avoid hell what does it say unto good works that is the purpose of the faith unto good works which

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God hath before ordained that we should walk in them and the English word should is incorrect it is the word would it is a determinant you will walk in them when you are saved now we know that we don't walk in them every moment because we're not filled with the

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Spirit every more moment are we isn't it true that from time to time we walk in the flesh we're indwelt by the

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Spirit of God from the moment of salvation but we walk in the flesh sometimes in this study on God's love has shown us how much we do we we walk in the flesh more than we knew more than we would admit until this past study and now we know don't we when we have an inpatient thought have have any of us ever made a negative inventory of weaknesses in our brother or sister in our mind we thought about that person and we made an inventory of all their weaknesses and the things about them we don't like then we were in the flesh while we were doing that Bible teaches it because love never does that amazing isn't it so God has created us in Jesus Christ unto good works which he determined before the foundation of the world and before time began that we who are his would walk in them

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Deuteronomy 13 6 is not teaching on this but there's a fascinating phrase in here about friendship it says if thy brother thy son the mother that or thy son or thy daughter or thy wife or thy friend which is as thine own soul entice thee do not believe in other gods now it's teaching on not believing in other gods but I want you to see the little teaching on friendship here notice this are thy friend which is as thine own soul there is such a friendship is that where that friend means as much to you as your own life

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Jesus said the highest form of friendship and of love is to give your life for your friend and Jesus looked at Peter and he said do you like me am

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I your friend Peter said you know my heart and Jesus said that's not enough yes

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I do know your heart but that's not enough in this world in this realm you must also feed my sheep which means he's gonna have to study which is a good work he's gonna have to teach which is a good work he's gonna have to disciple which is a good work spend time with new

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Christians which is a good work he's gonna have to go out and find some of those lost sheep which is a good work we call that soul winning not the best word to use for it probably he's going to have to love that new

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Christian which is a good work and that's not all Jesus said he said not only do you have to feed my lambs and my sheep but you've also got to walk in the road with me that's a good work because every day we get up we can make a choice whether we're gonna walk with me or with him we're gonna walk in self which is the flesh or we're gonna walk in Christ and we see all these things coming to pass here what if Jesus were our friend and what if we counted him a friend as our own soul that close of a friend

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Jesus asked Peter are you my friend Peter had to think about it didn't he well

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I think maybe that's what the Lord wants us to do this morning is to think about it the book of James teaches that seest thou how faith wrought with his works and by works was faith made perfect literally what that says is that faith works works faith brings works to happen in our lives it's just a given it's two sides of the same coin but it also says that faith that works is what makes faith perfect in the word perfect means complete it's like if you had a nickel and it had a head on it but it didn't have a tail would it be of any value couldn't spend it would be worthless and faith that does not have works with it is not faith it's not saving faith it's not faith of the

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Bible and that's what this is teaching so it is works that makes faith perfect or complete and this word for perfect and complete means to point or to aim at a target it is the conclusion of something the result of something and the purpose of that thing so what we find out when we study this is that works is faith made perfect or complete or whole works is the target aimed at by faith works is the conclusion of the faith that God gave you when you got saved works is the results of the faith that God gives you at salvation works is the purpose of the faith that God gave you at salvation because faith is the means and works is the end now that's backwards from what we as Baptists would think

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I'm sure but faith is what brings righteousness and friendship and the great clue that we found this morning is being the friend of God Jesus asked

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Peter do you agape me do you love me with your mind and with your purpose with your strength but then he asked

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Peter do you phileo me do you like me do you count me as a friend are you my friend then feed my sheep and walk down the same road

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I'm walking in and that is the whole key to how we find good works and fruit and all these things in our lives it is not a prayer formula it is a relationship let's stand and have prayer together father we thank you for your word we thank you for how you teach us even when we're teaching you teach us even when we're studying new things that we hadn't seen in the same passage that we've studied many times before and you've given us this living book and the

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Holy Spirit to be our great teacher and father we thank you that you tell us that you are performing a work of sanctification in our lives by the