All Things Together for Good: Chap. 5 Pt. 4

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Hermeneutics: Matthew Chap 24 Pt. 5

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So, we're still in chapter 5, this is part 4, we kind of only got through 3 or 4 slides last time.

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We had a really good time of discussion, so I'm hoping that that's the case here tonight also. We left off with slide number 10, and Watson is going through the test of the love of God, and this was the 10th one.

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I'm not going to read the whole thing again, I just want to let you know where we left off. So, this is slide 10, part 2.

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And Watson says, You who are apt to murmur at God, as if He had dealt ill with you, be humbled for this.

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Say thus with yourself, If I loved God more, I would have better thoughts of God. It is

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Satan who makes us have high thoughts of ourselves and hard thoughts of God. But take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.

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So do you sometimes think better of yourself than you do of God? Too much that you care to admit?

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Yes, brother. I would have to say we do it, and we don't even realize we do it.

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Anytime that we put any sin that we do or allow to happen, we're putting ourselves before or above God.

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Right. Have you ever seen somebody commit a sin, and you think that you're more merciful than God? You're like, oh, that's not a big deal.

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Meanwhile, God's like, that's a big deal. That's a sin. You know, sometimes we think we're more merciful than God Himself.

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And obviously that's the stain of the depravity in our minds and hearts that still exists there.

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So, have you ever said to yourself, well, God shouldn't punish something like that. I mean, really, what's the big deal?

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You know, again, that's our using our own standard and the own standard of our depraved heart to evaluate what sin is.

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So I resonated with this one. I, you know, unfortunately, sometimes you're in a position and you start thinking of yourself more highly than you ought.

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All right. Watson continues. He says, love takes all in the fair sense. It thinks no evil.

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Then Job fell to the ground in worship and said, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will depart.

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The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised. In all this,

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Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. It is the Lord's will. Let him do what he thinks best.

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Right? Have you ever thought about that? Like the Lord gives and the Lord takes away? What does that make you think?

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Job. Yeah, that's right where it came out of. Good job. Right? Yes. Right. But what, how does it work out in your life?

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Is that something that you, um, you look to embrace? Is that something that's like, oh yeah,

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I can't wait for the Lord to take that away from me. Yes.

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It's painful when he takes away things that he's given you, but, um, it reminds you that he's the one who gave it to you.

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He has the right to withhold it or give it. Right. So it ends up being a good pain.

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Yes. Right? You know that it's painful and you're holding on to something and at the same time there was something that I was holding on to for a while and I'm praying,

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Lord, please pry this out of my hands because I know I'm holding on to something I shouldn't be holding on to and I know it's going to be painful, but I know that that pain is better for me than what this idol is going to offer in return.

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Yeah, brother. Yeah. And I got to go with the idea that a lot of times we don't even think about it and we'll complain that this, that or the other thing has happened or we've lost this or, uh, whatever it might be that's of a negative mindset.

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We don't, not even, not even half enough do we reconcile this as, as God working within all lives.

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That's why I think this, this book is such a fantastic book. It is. It is. Have you ever been in a situation like this where the

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Lord took something away from you and you say, you say to yourself, God must really not love me. You question

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God's love for you because something was taken away from you that you thought was good. Right?

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And then we have to recognize that God is sovereign over, over our affairs and he knows what's best and he takes things away from us that he needs to take away from us that are bad for us, that we may be exploiting or using for the, you know, causing wrong motives in our hearts and just using the wrong way.

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Not for God's glory. Right? So those are the things that we have to keep in mind when something happens to us that we don't necessarily like.

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Right? The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. It's easy to say, it's not easy to live that out.

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Because when it hurts, it hurts. Like who wants to hurt? You know, there's enough hurting going on in the world right now.

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It's like, oh yeah, Lord, give me that pain. But you recognize, thankfully, because you're loved by God, you know that all things do work together for good.

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So if this is happening to me and God is sovereign and he's involved in my life, orchestrating and ordaining my steps, then this is good for me.

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And we have to have that mindset. Otherwise, we'll fall right into despair and start shaking a fist at God and saying, why are you doing this to me?

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I'm doing everything I can to please you. And forgetting that it's

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God who's the one working in you to will according to his purpose. Yes? And we won't have that mindset unless we really grasp onto the means of grace.

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Unless we're in Scripture. I mean, how many times have you, when you're studying in Scripture, said to yourself, ah, you know,

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Ezekiel is a perfect example of some of the things that, you know, I've seen Judah be cursed for.

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It's like, I really wanted to think about this. You know, so again,

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I think we need to grasp onto every opportunity because we make ourselves ignorant.

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Right. And grabbing onto the means of grace, right, is perfect. But what is grace?

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Grace is getting what you don't deserve. When you start to reflect on your sinfulness and what you do deserve that hasn't been given to you, okay?

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And God's been giving you stuff that rewards and blessing that you don't deserve, that's when you have to say, okay, thank you

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Lord. The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

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Yes, brother? If you're embracing the means of grace and you're in the

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Word and communicating to the Lord, and then something's taken away that you don't want taken away, and you're in the correct mindset and spiritual thought, then you can go to him and you can say, okay

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Lord, what is your will in this? I'm listening.

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I'm acknowledging what happened and I'm obeying and you're my Lord and you're in control of all things and this is what you want from me.

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Now help me to please you. Right. Excellent response. I think that's one of the things that we should do.

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We should go to the Lord and say, Lord, what is it you're teaching in this situation? Let me take a step back and assess the situation.

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What's going on in my life? What are maybe the wrong or impure motives that are going on in my heart that need to be changed?

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And then you assess it in light of God's grace, in light of his standard and say, wow, God is in the midst of this and blessed be the

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God who takes this away from me. God knows better than we do. So again, this is a test of love towards God.

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Yes, Pastor. Sometimes it's not even that you have wrong motives or impure ideas about something and then something is taken away.

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Sometimes God just has something better for you, you know? Amen. And that can happen.

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That happened to me one time in specific, I can remember. I was due a promotion. In fact, they've been guaranteed the promotion.

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And then it didn't happen. It was taken away. And I actually went to God in prayer and said, what's going on?

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I made sure I was tithing. I did all of that.

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And it was within a month that an opportunity came along that was ten times better than what

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I would have had if I had taken the first thing that I had. Incredible. Unfortunately, well not unfortunately, we don't always get to see the result of it.

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So that's why when the Lord takes it away from you, back to Romans 8 .28, it's for your good somehow.

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And you just have to accept that by faith. Right. Amen. Amen. Great example. Alright, next slide.

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This is 11. Another fruit of genuine love to God is obedience. He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me.

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John 14 .21. It is a vain thing to say we love Christ if we slight his commands.

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Does that child love his father who refuses to obey him? If we love God, we shall obey him in those things which cross flesh and blood.

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First, in the things difficult, and second, in the things dangerous. In the things difficult, as in mortifying sin.

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There are some sins which are not only as near to us as our garment, but dear to us as our eye.

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If we love God, we shall set ourselves against these, both in purpose and practice. Also, in forgiving our enemies.

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God commands us upon pain of death to forgive. Forgive one another. This is hard.

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It is crossing the stream. We are apt to forget kindness and remember injuries. But if we love

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God, we shall pass by offenses. When we seriously consider how many talents God has forgiven us, how many affronts and provocations he has put up with at our hand, this makes us write after his copy and endeavor rather to bury an injury than to retaliate it.

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Any comments on that? What does that make you think? Boy, this kind of knocks antinomianism right out of the ballpark, right?

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Well, we don't need the law. We're not under the law anymore. Jesus specifically says, He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me.

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You can't do that without the law, right? So the law is integral in our standard to know

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God and know what he wants from us, right? What does this mean about love and what are the implications?

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Feel free to raise your hand, offer a response. This is not just me. What does that mean?

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What are the implications? Yes? Other sacrifice involved? Absolutely.

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Love involves sacrifice. The way our Savior demonstrated love towards us is that he died for us.

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He sacrificed himself for us. He laid aside his divine prerogatives, an act of meekness, condescension, to come into the world, to die for the people who would spit in his face and look to kill him.

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So it's sacrificial. He loved his enemies and made them his children.

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Bless those who persecute you. That's hard. But that's what we're called to as Christians.

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Mike, you had something? While you're looking up, let me ask everybody this.

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Is this advocating a works -based salvation? Like if you have to keep the law, law is love.

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Is he saying that that's how we're saved? Yes? The way

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I view the love here is I view it as the two tablets. Loving God with all your soul, heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.

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That's not a work in the sense of you're doing that for salvation.

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You're doing that out of a changed heart. And the idea of loving your neighbor as yourself, we really think about that.

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The way it spells out, you're loving your neighbor even more than yourself because you're loving them the way you want to be loved.

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And so no matter how you look at that, as Zach said, it's sacrificial.

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And also on the side of the tablet of loving

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God, there's the whole idea of true worship. Does it occur to us that love is a verb?

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Like it's an action word? Like in order to love, you have to be doing something.

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And love comes by way of expression in words, sure. But if it's just words with no action behind it, is it really love?

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Doesn't Jesus say, you say you love me, but you don't keep... Why do you keep calling me Lord? You say you love me, but you're not keeping my commandments.

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So that's not really love. Saying you love someone is different than showing them that you love them.

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Did you have something? Yeah. Go ahead. Philippians 2, verse 3. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

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Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Having this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

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Amen. Having the mind of Christ means thinking not only to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

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Considering others better than yourselves. And that's the hard part. It's real easy with sin -stained hearts to think of self.

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Self is prominent. The goal is to think beyond self and to think of the people around us.

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To love them like we love ourselves. Right? Yes. It just reminded me of a

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Jewish proverb regarding the difference between a mirror and a window.

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The mirror, you see yourself, right? But what are you looking at? You're looking at silver. And you take the silver away, look out the window, you see everyone else.

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Excellent. Excellent. So, so far we're up to the test of love. And we're loving

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God in the things difficult. We have one more slide in the things... Oh, no. I'm sorry. This thing is dangerous now.

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So when God calls us to suffer for him, we shall obey. Love made Jesus suffer for us.

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Because of his great love for us, Ephesians 2 .4 says, because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.

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Lamentations 3 .22 Love was the chain which fastened Jesus to the cross. So if we love

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God, we shall be willing to suffer for him. Again, that's not a popular message that we hear in America.

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And unfortunately, we hear it even less in the American church. The American evangelical church is about, okay,

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God's with us and he's going to bless us with prosperity, and that could be money, and health, and wealth, and all this kind of stuff.

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And that's never what the apostles taught. That's never what Jesus taught. The scriptures say

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Jesus didn't have a place to lay his head. He didn't have any money. So when these people are teaching that you're going to be blessed, and healthy, wealthy, and all this stuff, look at Jesus and look at the apostles.

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They had none of those things. But they had everything at the same time in Christ. Okay. Love has a strange quality.

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It is at least suffering grace. It is the least suffering grace. And yet is the most suffering grace.

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It is the least suffering grace in one sense. It will not suffer known sin to lie in the soul of unrepentant of.

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It will not suffer abuses and dishonors done to God. Thus, it is the least suffering grace.

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Yet, it is the most suffering grace. It will suffer reproaches, bonds, imprisonments, for Christ's sake.

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I am ready not only to be bound, but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus. Acts 21 13

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It is true that every Christian is not a martyr, but he has the spirit of martyrdom in him.

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He says as Paul, I am ready to be bound. He has a disposition of mind to suffer, if God calls him to suffer.

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How does that make you feel? Is it easy to suffer?

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Is it something that we should look to do? If need be.

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If need be. Yeah, right. Exactly. If need be. I mean, you don't intentionally go around and look, oh, how can I hurt myself?

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Alright? But, what do we do? We look at other people and try to identify their needs.

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Alright? If they have a need, you know, we can help remedy that.

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We can be the answer to that. Sometimes we pray for things, like we pray for people to be sustained, we pray for people to be healed, we pray for people's incomes and finances and all these different things.

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Sometimes, not only do we have to pray, we have to be an answer to prayer. If we have the means to do it, well, do it!

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Right? What's the worst thing that's going to happen to you? Are you going to suffer a little on this side? You know, again, this is how we store up treasure in heaven.

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On the other side, we store up treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves can't break in and steal.

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You know, when you die, when you close your eyes for the last time, everything that's in your bank account stays there.

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Well, not until the government gets it, but you know what I mean. You're not taking that with you.

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Yes? The idea of suffrage, right? We're certainly not looking to suffer, right?

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Obviously. But it's looking past that. It's not considering the suffering that could occur in doing the right thing.

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And then, when the suffering does come, recognizing that it's coming for the right reason.

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Not that they're dealing it to you rightly, but you're receiving suffrage because you've done the right thing.

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I think that's... Right. So, we're not necessarily looking, seeking to suffer.

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But sometimes, do we have an inordinate desire for pleasure? Such that our desire for pleasure stops us from seeking to meet other people's needs because we know that's going to involve suffering, that's going to involve sacrifice, that's going to involve, you know, me spending more time, or whatever it is, for someone else.

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Right? So, there's two overriding desires in every person's life. Seeking pleasure or avoiding pain.

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Those are the two. Right? So, when you're seeking pleasure, you're not necessarily looking for pain or looking to find a way to alleviate pain in someone else.

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What we have to keep in mind is that the way God created us to be, when we seek pleasure, it is pleasure -ful to find somebody in pain and meet their need.

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That should be our pleasure. Not a selfish pleasure, but a selfless pleasure.

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So that when we see someone in need and we can meet that need, oh my goodness, this is where altruism comes from.

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People love to bless people with things, and they're not Christian, but they love the feeling of doing good things for other people.

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Not only do we get the feeling of doing good things for other people, we're magnifying and glorifying the God who saved us and created us.

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How much more so should we be willing to do those things, to lay our lives down for someone else?

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Make sense? Okay, good. Next. Love will carry men out above their own strength.

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Tertullian observes how much the heathen suffered for the love of their country. If the spring head of nature rises so high, surely grace will rise higher.

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If love to their country will make men suffer, much more should love to Christ. Love endures all things.

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So, does this strike a chord of nationalism to anybody? Some people are willing to die for their country.

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They'll do whatever it takes to save their country and fight for their country. How many people in this country would be willing to fight for and die for it yet ignore

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God? How many Christians would be willing to fight for the kingdom over the country?

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That should be our mindset. We are first and foremost to fight for the kingdom.

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Now, we don't use carnal weapons. Our weapons are not flesh and blood. Prayer meeting is warfare.

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This is where it happens. We should be practicing warfare every Wednesday night.

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This room should be filled. I'm grateful for every room we have here. This is where we exercise our

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God -given right, privilege to pray and tear down strongholds. Worship on Sunday is warfare.

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That's where we do warfare. So, if we want to see change in our families, change in the church, change in our communities and change in our country, we need to go to war.

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That means prayer on Wednesday and worship on Sunday. It's important. It is a

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God -ordained means of war against the world. We should worship every day.

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Corporately, yes, I agree. Family worship, personal worship time, absolutely.

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That's where it starts. It starts in the home. If it's not happening in the home, it's never going to happen outside the home.

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As men who lead your families, you're to lead your families in worship throughout the week, especially yourself.

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You want to make it a point. I don't know if you're an early riser or a late person who goes to bed late.

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Somewhere in that time, you have to make time to pray. You have to make time to read the Word of God.

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If you're not saturating your mind in the Word of God, you're saturating it in something else. Whatever you're saturating your mind in, that's what's going to seep in.

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That's going to be the overriding thought. Before you go to bed, don't turn the TV on. Pray. Read your scriptures.

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Don't watch TV and shut that and let that be the last image in your mind. Give yourself enough time before you go to bed to read your

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Word and pray. Pray yourself, pray with your spouse, pray with your children before you put your children to bed at night.

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Pray a little. It's so important. Basil speaks of a virgin condemned to the fire who having her life and estate offered her if she would fall down to worship the idol.

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Answered, let life and money go. Welcome Christ. It was a noble and zealous speech of Ignatius.

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Let me be ground with the teeth of wild beasts if I may be God's pure weed. How did divine affection carry the early saints above the love of life and the fear of death?

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Stephen was stoned. Luke was hanged on an olive tree. Peter was crucified at Jerusalem with his head downwards.

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These divine heroes were willing to suffer rather than by their cowardice to make the name of God suffer.

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So, what does that make you think? Go ahead.

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Like me personally, I feel like the church back then was so willing to die and they went out of their way but it's like, what are we doing?

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We have to make a stand. Even with evangelism, it's like not enough people are out evangelizing and me included in that.

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Guilty. Zach? All these men had seen and they had direct contact with Jesus.

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So they had to I feel like Right? Where is he?

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Ignatius. He was an early church father. He didn't meet Jesus. That's okay. That's alright.

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Luke did. Stephen did. Peter did. So I mean if you have direct contact with them your will to I don't know.

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I don't really know where I'm going with this. I guess I'm trying to say like isn't it said that like if you had like seen no

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I don't know. Somebody's gonna help you. I know exactly what you're saying and that's the typical attitude within the church.

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However, the apostle Peter disagrees with that. In his first epistle he says that the prophetic word the written word is more sure than the eyewitness that they have.

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We have the more sure word. It's not the way we think. And if you think about it that's even what

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Jesus told in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. And the rich man is pleading with Father Abraham send me back or send somebody back so that they might see.

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If they see they believe. No, they've got Moses and the prophets. And if they don't believe them they're not gonna believe.

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If somebody is raised from the dead they won't believe. Yeah. Jesus reviewed him.

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Blessed are those who haven't seen him. That's what I was thinking of there. Yes. I think of the inscription in our pulpit and maybe not everybody is aware of what's there but in the front of the pulpit it's inscribed that we would see

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Jesus. Every time we gather corporately and worship and the word is expounded upon to us we are seeing

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Jesus. Right. Repeatedly every Sunday. There's a blessing there that goes far beyond anything that Amen.

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If the preacher does his job right and captures what God is conveying we are hearing the very words of God in our midst.

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And we will see Jesus. Now that word see does not necessarily have to be with your eyes.

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You see what I mean? That's the way we use that word to convey understanding.

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So we will understand who Jesus is. We will understand what he's done for us and that understanding will bring a conviction in our hearts like we learned on Hebrews chapter 11.

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Faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things unseen. It's a conviction that we have in our heart that impels us and pushes us to do more.

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Yes. I've been out of the pulpit for four months and I went in Sunday and that was the first thing that caught my eye.

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I looked down and said I would see Jesus. And that just really focuses you once again that what are you doing in that pulpit and I'm giving a lecture.

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It's the preaching of the word of God. And the job of the preacher is that the people in the seats would see

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Jesus. It's a daunting task to get up to the pulpit recognizing that you're actually trying to convey

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God's words to the people up there but by God's grace and by his spirit he empowers you to do it such that you know you can rest in his grace.

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So it's kind of like this double edged sword here. You have fear and trembling but you also have this incredible confidence at the same time knowing that God's going to ordain what comes out of our mouths if we put the time in to study.

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That's another test of the love of God. We're up to still on number 11 actually.

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How did Paul prize his chain that he wore for Christ? He gloried in it as a woman who was proud of her jewels and holy

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Ignatius wore his feathers as a bracelet of diamonds not accepting deliverance. They refused to come out of prison on sinful terms.

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They preferred their innocence before their liberty. By this let us test our love to God.

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Have we the spirit of martyrdom? Many say they love God but how does it appear? They will not forego the least comfort or undergo the least cross for his sake.

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If Jesus Christ should have said to us I love you very much you are dear to me but I cannot suffer for you

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I cannot lay down my life for you we would have questioned the genuineness of his love. It may not

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Christ suspect us when we pretend to love him and yet will endure nothing for him.

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That's kind of like heavy. Right? That's very heavy.

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Should we go on to the next slide or would you like to comment on it? Alright, we're not going to suffer this slide.

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We're going to move forward. Alright, I get it. Twelve. Alright, we're up to number twelve.

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We're moving right along. This is faster than we moved last week. I was going to say sometimes it's like we want to think that we would die for the

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Lord. And sometimes

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I'll pray certain things like Lord I pray that I would have the heart to want to die for you.

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And even with that prayer I almost hold back from praying that because I'm like what if he puts me through that?

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You know? I don't know if anyone feels the same. But I feel like we should

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God does give us the grace in that moment to be able to endure that suffering for him.

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I agree with you. I think we have to be very careful with the way we speak.

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Right? Like Peter, Lord I'll die for you. Boom, right away. You've got to be careful when you talk like that.

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Sometimes my mouth is cutting checks my body can't catch. Like I'm saying things that I'm probably not going to do.

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And I've said this before, it's a quote I don't know who said it, but they said you'll never die for something you've never lived for in the first place.

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Right? So if we think in our minds that persecution could come we better start living for him right now.

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And taking these opportunities to suffer in little ways. Because if we don't suffer in little ways, we're never going to suffer in a big way, given the opportunity.

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We're going to turn away from that. So, this is a testing ground. Let's learn how to suffer for one another and help one another through our walk with the

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Lord. Life is messy. We talked about that a couple weeks ago. Life is messy. As priests, we're called to sacrifice ourselves.

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We get our blood on them and their blood on us. The life is in the blood. It's easy, like Abel he did a grain offering he didn't do a sacrifice like Abel.

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Cain did a grain offering, not like Abel. Grain offering is like monetary means.

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It's like cutting a check. It's easy to cut a check donate to somebody and ease your conscience. Alright, I did what

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I had to do, now I can go and live my life. It's much different instead of cutting a check, going to that person, helping that person, doing something with them on a regular basis.

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It's tough. It's not easy. Yes, brother? I think to keep in mind other people helps you with counting the cost.

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If you think of the early church Paul was suffering for his brother's sake.

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He was writing letters from prison for the sake of his brothers.

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Having the mind to glorify God and serve the brethren would help through the suffering process.

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The importance of others and their courage and their well -being and their spiritual growth.

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It actually comes down to dying to self. Am I going to die to myself and become a servant of all?

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Am I going to look for opportunities to serve? Am I going to look for opportunities to get dirty and help people through whatever it is they're in?

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Even the people persecuting them too. Yes. What does

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Paul say when he's in prison? What has happened to me has served to expand the gospel.

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The gospel was proclaimed in the jail. He wasn't in Philippi. He was writing to Philippi.

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I loved how that letter ends. He says, we all send greetings back to you, even the household of Caesar.

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In other words, there were people who were in that prison who were related to Caesar who were now Christians who were sending their regards back to us.

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He was put there and it served to advance the gospel, even to the extent of Caesar's household.

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We have to get out of this mindset about all these politicians because they really get under your skin. We have to love them.

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They're our enemies. We have to love them. How do we love them? By praying for them. By reaching out to them to try to serve them and help them and tell them what

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God says about how to rule properly. Let's move on.

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Slide 13. Another fruit of genuine love to God is to long for Christ's appearing.

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Henceforth there is a crown of righteousness laid up for me and not for me only, but for those who love Christ's appearing.

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2 Timothy 4a. Love desires union. Aristotle gives the reason. Because joy flows upon union.

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When our union with Christ is perfect in glory then our joy will be full. He who loves

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Christ loves his appearing. Christ's appearing will be a happy appearing to the saints.

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His appearing now is very comforting when he appears for us as an advocate. Hebrews 9 .24.

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But the other appearing will be infinitely more so when he shall appear for us as our husband.

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He will at that day bestow two jewels upon us. His love, a love so great and astonishing that is better felt than expressed.

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So are you longing for Christ's coming? How do you do that?

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How do you long for Christ's coming? How do you hasten

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Christ's coming? Right. Bringing his enemies under his under his footstool.

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Because he's ruling and reigning until what? His enemies are made of footstool for his feet. So you want to hasten the

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Lord's coming? Bring his enemies under his feet by proclaiming the gospel. Proclaiming that Jesus is

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Lord. Living a life that exemplifies Him. Taking dominion over the areas around you. Look to be a servant of all.

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Right? A couple weeks ago I said it. You're saved by grace for good works.

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Those good works are a manifestation of the faith that God's giving you. Your good works are a reflection.

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They prove your salvation. It's not the means by which you're saved. But it's why you were saved.

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We're saved to do these things for other people. To bring the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Okay, I think we're going to our next to last slide.

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And he will also bestow his likeness upon us. When he shall appear, we shall be like him. 1

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John 3, 2. And from both these, love and kindness, infinite joy, will flow into the soul. No wonder then that he who loves

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Christ longs for his appearance. The Spirit and the bride say, come. Even so, even so come,

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Lord Jesus. By this let us test our love to Christ. A wicked man is afraid of Christ's appearing and wishes he would never appear.

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But such as love Christ are joyful to think of his coming in the clouds. They shall then be delivered from all their sins and fears.

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They shall be acquitted before men and angels and shall forever be forever translated into the paradise of God.

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Does that excite you? If it doesn't, something's wrong. Like that should be like what we're aiming for.

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Oh my goodness, I can't wait for that day. I can't wait for the day he actually comes back and we're going to see him bodily.

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We know his presence, we experience his presence when the body is together and when we're in worship and when we're in prayer.

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But this is going to be a greater manifestation of the presence of Christ. It's going to be incredible joy.

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And then to hear the proclamation you're innocent, you're free.

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You know, saved, redeemed. Let's get to the table, the wedding supper of the lamb.

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We're going to eat together. And we get a small taste of that every week with communion.

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It's like a tiny microcosm of what the big event is going to be like.

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This should be like thrilling to you. Very much so. Any questions?

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Fourteen. Genuine love to God will make us stoop to the lowest offices.

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Love is a humble grace. It does not walk abroad in state. It will creep upon its hands. It will stoop and submit to anything whereby may be serviceable to Christ.

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As we see in Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, both of them honorable people, yet one takes down Christ's body with his own hands and the other embalms it with sweet odors.

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It might seem much for people of their rank to be employed in that service, but love made them do it.

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If we love God, we shall not think any work too low for us, by which we may be helpful to Christ's members.

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Love is not squeamish. It will visit the sick, relieve the poor, wash the saints' wounds.

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The mother who loves her child is not squeamish. She will do those things for her child which others would scorn to do.

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He who loves God will humble himself to the lowest office of love to Christ and his members. These are the fruits of love to God.

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Happy are they who can find these fruits so foreign to their natures, growing in their souls.

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It's got a way with words, huh? I underline that one, we shall not think any work too low for us. Is there anything that you have in your mind that you'd be like, you know,

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I just wouldn't do that. That's the thing you have to put in the crosshairs.

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That's the thing you have to obliterate and say, you know what? I'm willing to do anything. Whatever He puts in front of me, that's what

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I'm going to be willing to do. I'm a servant. He saved me. You know, my sins have been paid for.

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I was talking with my brother before, it's like, when you recognize that God before the universe was created, chose to save you, you know, like,

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He chose the day He was going to set His covenant love upon you, place His Spirit within you, wash you, adopt you, bring you into His family, to be part of His Kingdom forever and ever and ever, that should overwhelm us.

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We're not thinking properly if that doesn't overwhelm us. We get too easily satisfied with the things on TV or in the movies or stuff like when you dwell on the words of Scripture and recognize exactly what happened, what

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He did, that should be like a flood, a flood of emotion. My goodness.

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I'm saved for all eternity by the Creator of the universe? My goodness.

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Any comments or questions? I think we're up to the last one. Oh no, this is it.

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Questions. Any questions or final thoughts? Are we all ready to suffer?

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All right. Say again? Not as much as we should. I agree with you, brother.

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Thankfully we're all in process. So next time God presents us an opportunity to do something maybe that we don't want to do or our flesh is like, oh gosh,

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I don't want to do that. I was set to go out to dinner but now so and so needs me. What do you think

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Christ would do? Would He forego the dinner and help His sheep?

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Let's just do what Jesus did. I know it's difficult for me. It's one of the hardest things.

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Zach was talking about it. It's hard to be a Christian. You've got to overcome the desires of your flesh daily.

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Yes, brother? Just thinking about the night that He was about to be betrayed,

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He picked up the patient and watched His disciples sleep. He set an example for us.

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He was serving His creator and His master. Amen. the

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King of the universe washing His creation's feet. Like, wow, that's profound when you consider it.