All Things For Good: Chap. 6 Pt. 3

God Desires Our Love

Going through the book, All Things for Good, a couple weeks ago we started chapter six, and it was an exhortation to love God. And so, Thomas Watson is reminding us, what the scriptures remind us, that we ought to be lovers of God, and recognizing that we're fleshly, and we sometimes fail to, oftentimes fail to, love God as we ought to.

He has given us 20 motivations to love God. And so, we've actually gone through five of them. We have a lot more to get through in this chapter, but we've been having some good discussions. So, today we'll start on number six.

We'll read that together, and then, well, I'll read it to you, and then we'll talk about it. Number six, God desires our love. We have lost our beauty and stained our blood, yet the King of Heaven is a suitor to us.

What is there in our love that God should seek it? What is God the better for our love? He does not need it. He is infinitely blessed in himself. If we deny him our love, he has more sublime creatures who pay the cheerful tribute of love to him.

God does not need our love, yet he seeks it. So, this is a motivation to love God, that he desires our love. As you ponder that for a moment. I have Hosea 6 .6 here, and I don't know. Sometimes I write my notes, and then I forget where I, but here, because he'll give us tons of scripture for most of these, but this is the scripture that came to mind somehow.

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice. The knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings. And this is God speaking to the people through Hosea. So, when we consider, you know what he says here, we have lost our beauty and stained our blood, and yet the King of Heaven is a suitor to us.

What impact or motivation does it have on us when we consider the fact that we are corrupt, we are selfish, and yet the Lord pursues us. He draws us to himself and continues to desire our love, as flawed as it is.

How often do we think about that? Thoughts? There's coffee in the back. It's not Sunday morning, we're, it's like, no, it's Wednesday evening, it's hump day, come on. Here, he's desiring to motivate us, and he's reminding us that God desires our love.

And he doesn't mince words. We're not worthy. We're not worthy of his love, that he would desire it. And our love is flawed, and yet he still calls us to it. Erica, I knew I could count on you.

Well, I was thinking about how, you know like how some people, it's almost like they wanna punish God, like they'll do something out of like anger towards God. Like, I think even somebody who says that they're atheist, but really it's more agnostic, like they believe in God.

They're like, well, I'm not gonna believe in God because he did this, like this horrible event in life. And I just think about how, when it says that God desires our love,.

Is that specifically talking about his people,.

The ones that?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, here in Hosea, you know, remember another prophet going to the people, and the prophets were these, you know, they were covenant prosecutors. And so the large majority of them were sent to his people specifically.

There were times where they were sent to others, outsiders. You know, we think of Jonah going to Nineveh. But for the most part, he's speaking to his own people. And here, you know, he's even laid out, you know, God is more interested in our love and that we would know him than sacrifices, than the outward shows and professions of faith.

You know, we talk about that religious duty. God does desire those things, but he's more concerned about the heart. And so to give one without the other is vain. So yeah, he's primarily talking about himself, but all the world ought to love him.

Pastor Jensen.

Yeah, and remember, the demonstration of love is obedience to his commandments.

That's one of the primary ways.

In which we demonstrate our love. It's easy to say, I love you. It's more difficult to demonstrate that love.

Right.

So, I mean, that's something that we want to keep in mind. And how else do we love him? Well, by loving, loving one another.

Right.

You know, by this, they will know that you're mighty sacred if you have love for one another.

Right.

So, I mean, it's not just love in an abstract.

Right.

It's concrete, tangible demonstration, which is, we follow that even from God. You know, in fact, in Romans five, he demonstrated his love for us in that he gave us Jesus Christ. You know, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins.

So, love is not just an emotion.

Right.

Now, it is, but not just that.

Praise God.

Right. You know, love from husband to wife or what not. There is an emotional side to that, but it's so much more than just the emotion.

Right. Right.

Yeah, I mean, I said, and those were the words of Jesus. You know, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. All right. And his commandments, if you love him, they're not burdensome.

By the way, I love the emotional side.

What's that? He loves the emotional.

That's right.

Tell Ginger I said so.

Amen. Amen. Okay.

God Has Deserved Our Love

So, he desires our love, and love is feeling, but it is shown in obedience, and that's how it's manifested. So, we'll move on to number seven. God has deserved our love. How has he loved us? Our affections should be kindled at the fire of God's love.

What a miracle of love is it that God should love us when there was nothing lovely in us? When you were in your blood, I said unto you, live. The time of our loathing was the time of God's loving. We had something in us to provoke God's fury, but nothing to excite his love.

What love, passing understanding was it to give Christ to us, that Christ should die for sinners? God has sent all the angels in heaven wondering at this love. Augustine says, the cross is a pulpit, and the lesson Christ preached on it is love.

Oh, the living love of a dying Savior. I think I see Christ upon the cross bleeding all over. And so, here, as Pastor Jensen just mentioned.

That passage in Ezekiel is probably one of the heaviest passages in Ezekiel. It's the longest, too. And, well, I won't even say it. You should read it.

And you'll be shocked,.

But it will really open your eyes.

All right.

Well, there's homework from Jerry to go home and read Ezekiel 16.

I just finished reading it.

And if you don't know, Jerry will be teaching on Sunday school sometime in the future.

Future.

In the future.

Yes.

So, we won't get a timed text on that soon. It's near. It's at hand.

Before the end.

If the Lord wills. If the Lord tarries. All right, so go home and read Ezekiel 16. But, yes, what do we see here? There was this miracle of love. Nothing in us that was lovely. Nothing in us deserved it, as we just said.

And this is more motivation that he deserves our love. Did I see a hand? Almost a hand.

No?

I was just scratching.

Okay.

There seems to be an overlap in some of these, but there are innumerable aspects to consider. He who first loved us. Many want to question God's plan and why he does what he does and how he could have done it differently.

You know, and we think about, well, God says he loves us. Well, if he loved us, he'd want me to be happy. If he loved me, he would do this. If he loved me, he would give me that. Doesn't he understand, right?

And we question God's love. And yet, the question is, who has the wisdom or the power to be God, to spin the world into motion, to maintain all things, and provide a perfect standard of righteousness?

And although we fail to uphold it, he provides salvation at great cost to himself, giving up his beloved son. And he endures much sin with great patience from even those of us, we who belong to him. So how patient are we when we feel disrespected or if we're powerless to do something about it?

I think I was just going off on some thoughts my way on here. But just thinking about, well, if God loved us, wouldn't he do this and wouldn't he do that? And I think when we allow ourselves to have the mentality and start thinking that we might be wiser than God, I don't think we appreciate the patience or the wisdom that he has exhibited to us, that if we were in his place, what would we do differently?

We would make a very big mess of it. So God has deserved our love. Any questions or comments on that before I move to the next one?

Jerry?

Just one real quick comment.

And it's kind of the obvious,.

But we too often forget his love and just remember his gifts. And that's something that no matter how well-versed we think we are, we can very easily fall into that trap. And as we look around us today and start to see some of the things crumbling, some of the things questionable happening, we have to remind ourselves of God's love for us and recognize that this very well may be something that is pushing us back toward his love.

Oh, absolutely, man. All things working for good. And we have to remember what that greatest good is, right? Who remembers? A couple of verses later. What's our greatest good?

To be conformed to the image of Christ.

To be conformed to the image of Christ. To be like him, right? That's our greatest good, is to be like Christ. And God in his perfect love for us is working all things to help us to that perfect end. We'll go on to number eight.

I'm sorry. I read the second half of number seven. Talking about seeing Christ bleeding. I think I hear him say to us, put your hand into the wound in my side. Feel my bleeding heart. See if I do not love you and will you not bestow your love upon me?

Will you love the world more than me? Did the world appease the wrath of God for you? Have I not done all this? And will you not love me? It is natural to love where we are loved. Christ having set us a copy of love and written it with his blood, let us labor to write after so fair a copy and to imitate him in love.

We love him because he first loved us. So continuing on with that number seven, the motivation that God has deserved our love. I think he says that pretty clearly. Number eight, love to God is the best self-love.

It is self-love to get the soul saved. By loving God, we afford our own salvation. He who dwells in love dwells in God and God in him. And he is sure to dwell with God in heaven. Who has God dwelling in his heart?

So that to love God is the truest self-love. He who does not love God does not love himself. Have fun with that.

I could respond to that. Okay, the initial thought is, well, we love ourselves too much, right? But if we really understood God's love and who God was, who he is, and the magnitude of that, if we fall short of loving him, we're putting ourselves in dire straits and possibly eternal hell.

So that's not love to yourself at all, from that perspective.

It is in our best self-interest to love God, indeed. I was going through these notes just as we had a guest speaker a couple weeks ago. And I said, oh, look at that. It reminded me of some of the things that were brought up.

And I think for those of us who were reformed longer, we just, wait, hold on a second. We get a little, we wanna clarify how that's taken. As I'm going through the notes here and I'm looking through all the motivations, there's times where I'm looking at it and I'm thinking about, is this a proper motivation?

Is this how we would normally think? And it was getting near the end, so we'll have some time. We'll bring this up again later on. Talking about the various motivations. Where sometimes God seems to articulate through the scriptures the motivation for his people.

And it seems almost carnal. It doesn't seem spiritual. And you think about church discipline. Think about the Apostle Paul telling Timothy about rebuking those. If they persist, rebuke in the presence of all that the rest may see and fear.

Like, that's their motivation not to go where they shouldn't go, is that, look what's gonna happen to you. And even here, you think about Ephesians 5, where it's talking about the husband loving his wife and saying, he who loves his wife loves himself.

No one ever hated his own body, but cherished it and nourished it. So in this one flesh union, it's in one's best interest to love and nourish your wife. And so there almost seems to be a time where it's appealing to, hey, this is for your good.

And it seems like a carnal motivation rather than a spiritual motivation, but I think we have to understand that the Lord knows our frame, that we're put dust. When it comes to motivation, yes, we want to grow in our righteousness, in our sanctification.

We should get to the point where we want to do the right thing because it's the right thing. We want to do all things out of a true love for God, considering all these motivations of just how glorious God is, how wonderful he is, how much he deserves our love.

So whether it be on the positive end of loving God or on the, what someone would say would be the negative of fearing church discipline. I don't wanna be disciplined. I don't wanna be put out. I don't wanna be embarrassed.

You know, when we think of, as we try to motivate, we have a baby in the house, you know, and the way you try to motivate a baby to listen to you versus a toddler, versus a teenager, versus an adult, it changes from time to time.

Hopefully it changes, you know. We still want them to do what's right, and we want them to do it because it's right, but sometimes they need a little help along the way because maturity level and everything.

Are you guys tracking with me? Does this make sense? Am I offending or concerning anyone?

I was gonna tell the quote that John Piper normally says,.

I know Pat's gonna make me a little upset,.

Is this, you know, God is most glorified by us when we are most satisfied in Him, you know, which means that, you know, we're satisfied in everything that God gives us. We're satisfied in everything that God withholds from us.

We're satisfied in the condition that He has us in right now because we know that all things work together for good. He's sovereign over all things, and when you can be completely content and satisfied in Him wherever you are, that brings Him glory.

Because the world looks at us, sometimes we're in a bad spot, but if we're not downcast and we're still rejoicing in God, they're like, why are you acting like this?

Why?

Because God loves me and I love God. You know, I have this relationship that it's not affected by what's happening. It's affected by Him. He's constant through, you know, whether things are going good or bad, we know that God's in the midst of us before we know He's through.

Right, yeah, I think, I think while, I'll get one second, Jerry. Yeah, when we see someone like Piper and we can appreciate, I mean, I've read some of his stuff. There's certain things I appreciate. I think for us or for those of us who think there might be a little bit of an imbalance with him, there's truth in what he's saying because the scriptures relay that.

I think sometimes the imbalance is kind of putting the cart before the horse or the focus, the emphasis on what we want to, and out of what we want, we're gonna love and serve God rather than putting God first.

I wonder if it leans a little to man first, but there's truth in it. If you keep the balance, if you keep things, and Jerry and then Maria.

The thing I was gonna say is that the peace of God within us, right, gives us the ability to live a peaceful life, all right, in relationship with God, such that we can be content no matter what is going on around us.

The only problem is we keep getting in the way.

Okay, very good.

I mean, I'm just angry at what's going on with John Baker.

Oh, no, we can't do that. John Piper is a proponent, a teacher, of Christian hedonism, you know, and speaking of the, how's the best way to, you wanna help us out there, Pastor Jens? I know you're more familiar with it.

Yeah, what Piper says, and your motivation is always self-interest, and the best self-interest is is that even when you love God, it's in your best interest, and my complaint, and what I have a problem with, is his exclusivity.

He says it's always self-interest, and there is no such thing as pure motivation to love God without, because we know that by doing that, it will turn out for our good anyway, and I disagree with that.

I think that love, part of the maturing process of a Christian, the sanctification process of a Christian, is when you first become a Christian, you're just happy you're not going to hell. And that's, maybe that's even your motivation for coming to Christ, is I don't want any part of hell.

I heard about heaven. That's what I want. Self-interest, right? But it's not bad, because he'd like to say that for us. But we are also growing Christ, and to become more and more like him, who gave himself, and we can learn how to give ourselves, not for whatever I'm going to do, but simply because it's going to please my Savior.

And I think there can be such a thing as a pure motive. And he talks about, you know, like even, you give your wife good gifts, you know, because you know ultimately,.

It's going to turn out,.

It's going to be for your,.

You're going to get a benefit. I disagree with that. There's times I've done things with my wife, I didn't want to do them. But I knew that they put a smile on my wife's face, and just to see her smile, you know, to know that I've done something good for her, not because she's going to do something bad for me.

I think your statement is well said. There's an imbalance, and I think he misses that. That's my complaint.

Yeah, there's certainly truth to it, and the scripture bears that out. But I think it would almost be like a, perhaps a maturity thing. You want to grow in your sanctification, because there's times where you're going to do something, and in the temporal, there's going to be no actual benefit to you.

You know, if you're doing something for someone, and they're completely unaware of it, there's no reward for that, you know, in your reputation or whatever. It's pleasing to God, and you want to be pleasing to God.

You love God, and you love his people, and so you want to do those things. That would be a pure motivation. Chris, and then Jerry.

So true self-love flows out of our love to God.

True self

Is that what's being said here?

I think when he says here, it is the best self-love, I think there's a self-love already. You know, like in Ephesians, he says, you know, what man ever hated his body, but he cherishes and nourishes it.

You know, we love ourselves, and that's the problem, even when people, they hate themselves. It's like they just hate that they're not doing what they expect of themselves. There's actually like a root of pride even underneath that, that they're unhappy.

But everyone wants what's best for themselves. They're loving themselves, and they're doing what's best for themselves, in their mind. But our love is corrupt, and twisted, and perverse, apart from God.

So when we have love for God, we're gonna love ourselves better. It's in our best interest to love God. It is to our benefit. Does that make sense to your question? All right, so Jerry, Maria, Pastor Jensen.

Pastor Jensen first.

Yes. Rank.

What was that?

No. No.

He's exercising executive privilege.

There you go.

Right.

But you need to understand, you gotta put Watson in context.

Right.

Remember what he's writing. There was no such thing as a self-love movement.

Right. The self-esteem, yeah.

We are very much influenced by the term self-love, as it has been put out by philosophers and psychologists in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. That's not what Watson means. What Watson means is, if you really love yourself, you would understand that if you love God, that's the best type way you can love yourself.

If you want to please yourself, you're gonna please yourself in the short term, but not in the long term, you know?

Right.

He's not referring to the self-love movement.

Yeah, we're kind of steep in that nowadays, but he's thinking more about Ephesians 5. He's thinking about Paul.

I just, in piggybacking on Pastor Jensen,.

It was not an executive privilege.

We'll get to you, I promise.

What comes to my mind, again, it's a pithy statement. Selfless love is the best love for self. Selfless love, when you're loving someone just purely for their sake, that's the best love for yourself. You're not doing it with a motive to receive anything.

It's completely selfless, but that ends up being the best love for yourself. You're out of the picture.

Pastor Anthony has a thousand lines. I gotta get the book, I gotta get a cheat sheet. Terry, Maria, go ahead.

Getting back to Piper.

Yes, Piper.

I'll share a short story, but it'll show how this era can really go astray. I was teaching first and second graders Sunday school. This is years ago at Grace. And I was using Piper's material. This particular topic was the material for that Sunday.

And so I taught it as it was. I had at least two children raise their hand. You mean I can't do anything good? So you can see where they took it. Right away, if you're saying everything's for self, there's an element of anything you do is for yourself.

Right away, that means I can't do anything good? I couldn't answer them. You know, from the very beginning.

Right, right.

Oh, that's fun. That's why I get away from those Sunday school materials. Just go straight from the scriptures.

Maria.

Woo, that's dangerous. This is what they gave me, I'm sorry. Maria, and then I think that's what Mike's hands up.

Go ahead.

No, I think it's just captured in the paradox of eating Christ, we find his life, we lose it, but Jesus' life, we find it. And I think I've said this before in this Bible study, but some people carry the whole idea of glorifying God as our chief end, as like being the US Senator for God, but it's actually out of indifference.

Because that's what's best for us, is just loving and worshiping God.

Yeah, we have to remember, we're designed for a purpose. And if we don't fulfill that purpose, we're kind of, we're a mess.

Purposeless.

Purposeless, exactly. Thank you.

Mike.

Yeah, I just wanted to add,.

You know, Jesus said the kinetic energy of the world is changed by the law of the soul.

Mm-hmm.

He knows the value of our souls, so we should know the value of our souls. And if we do value our souls, we should kind of evolve self-preservation. But then God has softened over that, and he uses that to benefit us as well as the world.

Mm-hmm.

And when we serve, and we do do good at our self-preservation, but it's to glorify and love the other people, as opposed to others.

Yeah, the question is, what is our motivation, you know? I mean, here, Watson is giving us 20 different possible motivations to love God. And some might hit us differently than others. Some seem more appropriate, and then they make sense, and then some like us.

I think part of it is the context of our day, where we're trained to think about ourselves first. I mean, that's just our mindset in this culture. Oh, we gotta put number one first. We gotta avoid toxic people and toxic relationships.

We're all about preserving ourselves. To love God is in our best interest, and it is the best self-love. And so that should be a motivation in that, but hopefully not our only motivation. So we just wanna strive and keep the balance, which is like everything else in the Christian walk, is this keeping the right balance through it.

So we'll move on to the next one. Good, good interaction, appreciate it. Number nine, love to God evidences sincerity. The upright love you, and that's Canticle's Psalm of Solomon. Many a child of God fears he is a hypocrite.

Do you love God? When Peter was dejected with the sense of his sin, he thought himself unworthy that ever Christ should take notice of him or employ him more in the work of his apostleship. See how Christ goes about to comfort him.

Peter, do you love me? As if Christ had said, though you have denied me through fear, yet if you can say from your heart you love me, you are sincere and upright. To love God is a better sign of sincerity than to fear him.

The Israelites feared God's justice. When he slew them, they sought him and inquired early after God. But what did all this come to? Nevertheless, they did but flatter him with their mouth and lied to him with their tongues, for their heart was not right with him.

That repentance is no better than flattery, which arises only from fear of God's judgments and has no love mixed with it. Loving God evidences that God has the heart, and if the heart is his, that will command all the rest.

Just wanna make sure this, oh, okay.

So,.

Many a child of God fears that they are hypocrites. True or false? The interesting part is, do true hypocrites fear that reality? That's what I always wonder. Do true hypocrites fear that they are actually hypocrites, where, I mean, I've known many believers, people I truly believe are believers, who fear that they're hypocrites because they know that their actions at times don't line up with their profession of faith, don't line up with what part of them, part of them wants to do and do right, and yet they find themselves failing, they find themselves struggling.

We think of Romans 7 as the Apostle Paul saying the things I wanna do, I don't do, the things I don't wanna do, I do do, and I do believe that is, he is speaking after being converted and not before, because it really doesn't make sense before, and it doesn't go with the context of the book.

Paul talks about the worldly sorrow that only leads to death. There are people who, just like the Israelites, who didn't have a heart change, they feared God, they feared his judgments. I can think of people who were just mired in sin and hating the consequences, and yet every time they got free and clear for a moment, they're jumping right back in, like a pig to the slop, you know?

So thoughts on this?

Ashley?

I had actually recently been studying John 21, verse 15, and basically, Jesus asked him three times, do you love me? And the first two times, love, the type of love was different from the last. So the type of love, for the first two times, when he said, do you love me, the sacrificial love, and Peter, because in the past, he had said, I would die for you, you know?

And that's when Jesus was like, you're gonna deny me before the root grows. You have to deny me three times.

Right.

So I think that that was to point out to him, you know, do you, like, do you love me? And then Peter, he answered back, yes, I love you, but the love that he answered back was actually, what did he call it?

Galea.

Galea, yeah, Galea love. So it's like, he didn't wanna say that other type of sacrificial love, because he knew that he didn't love him in that way, that he had, that he didn't wanna say that. But then later on, Jesus said that you will love me, sacrificially, because he says, you will, you're gonna die for me.

You're not gonna deny me, like he gives him that comfort at the end. But yeah, that's a very, that I didn't realize until recently, that it was different types of love that he was asking.

Did you want to add to that?

Let me. Yeah.

Okay, great. Yeah, so here he had failed him. And now he's asking him about the sincerity. Before, he felt sincere, right? And yet he failed. And yet Christ, in his mercy, asked him about his heart. He doesn't question him about his failure.

He goes, well, what was all that back there? What he did was, he asked him three times. He denied him three times. He gave him three more times to profess that he does love him. And so the Lord is looking at our heart.

He is looking at whether we're sincere and upright, because there are many who will flatter with their lips, right? And we talked about just even starting this conversation, chapter six, is there are many hypocrites.

There are many who give false kisses to God, and yet how many actually love him out of all those who profess that they love him. So, Christ asked Peter about, not his failure, but his heart. I have a question here.

Is it easier to fear or to love?

What's that?

That's right.

Fear.

Easier to fear, okay.

Maria.

I'm afraid of how much you love him.

Oh, thank you. I was thinking it, but I wasn't going to say it. I want them to be afraid of how much they love me. Okay, so it's easier to fear than to love him. Well, I mean, because fear kind of goes right to our self-interest, right?

I mean, the Israelites, they were trying to cover all their bases, trying to worship God, but their heart wasn't with them. They're worshiping other gods. They're showing fear. They just want to make sure they're prospering, however, whatever it takes.