Systematic Theology (part 24)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Today we are going to go back to our adventures in theology. As we've been looking at theology or the study of God, we've looked at the doctrine of the word, why the word of God, the

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Bible is central to our knowledge of God. We've looked at the doctrine of God proper, theology proper.

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We've looked at some of the attributes of God and the incommunicable attributes. We've looked at eternality, the omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, and several other attributes.

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And then finally, we came down to the attribute of the benevolence of God, the goodness of God.

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And today, the last week we looked at, the last time we met, we looked at one aspect of the benevolence of God, which is the love of God.

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We saw how the love of God was central to our understanding of who God is when we said

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God is love. So, in your handout, you should see on the first page some of these verses that we looked at.

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We looked at examples in the life of Joseph, how God exhibited steadfast love in the life of Joseph through all its ups and downs.

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We saw the redemption of the Israelites from Egypt. We looked at Exodus 34, where God passes before Moses and he proclaims himself as a

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God of steadfast abounding and steadfast love. And then we looked at a few other verses as well as we kind of rounded our understanding of how the love of God is central to who

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God is in his character and in his response. And we also saw how the love of God is not, cannot be separated from the holiness of God.

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So, many of those quotes from the prophetic writings talk about the judgment of God that God brings in his love as well.

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Today we're going to switch to the counterpart or the man's response to the nature of God in God being love.

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Love is one of the communicable attributes. So because God is love and because God has communicated his love toward us, we are able to love him back.

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We can respond in love because God has first loved us. So that's going to be our focus today.

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So the bottom of page one and the rest of page two are the sections we'll be looking at this morning.

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But before we begin, why don't I open us with a word of prayer. Almighty God, our loving father, we commit this morning into your care.

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Lord, we pray that as we open up your word, you, oh Lord, by your spirit would make these words reveal who you are, that they would reveal the great call that you have placed upon each one here who is a believer.

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And I pray father that you would also impress upon any who do not know you the beauty and your outstanding love that we would respond with hearts of thanksgiving.

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In Jesus name we pray, amen. When we looked at the topic of love last time, we said that that can be one of the topics that's very confusing.

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So when we talk about love to the people of the world, so let's maybe begin.

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So let's begin with a definition of love.

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We've looked at definitions of love before.

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I didn't have this on me. I think I should be able to find that quickly here. Yeah, this was the definition we used.

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God is freely and eternally giving of himself for the good of others. That was the definition we used.

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That's from 1 John 4, 8 as a reference. God is freely and eternally giving of himself for the good of others.

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Now when you think of exhibiting love for God, what are some of the things that come to your mind?

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Because really we're going to take our understanding of where we stand in our love for God and then love for our fellow man.

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And then let the word of God focus us in terms of how we must exhibit that love today.

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So let's start with a few examples. When you think of, I love God, what are some of the aspects of that love that come to your mind?

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Excellent. So even when my heart overflows with love toward my

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God, the reason I can do that is because his love toward me has been overwhelming.

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And when I reflect upon the love of God, it's because of the ability, my ability to love is because God's love has first been poured out in me.

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Excellent. What else? This morning as I was driving in, I was reminded of the many areas in which

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I failed to love God or to love my fellow man this week as I was praying and asking

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God for forgiveness. And I was reminded that God's love never changes. Every time

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I sinned, God has forgiven it fully and completely in the person of Jesus Christ.

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And sometimes I wonder, you know, how do I commit sins that I ought not to?

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And yet God's love is free. My standing is not based on my performance.

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It is based on the performance of Jesus Christ that he would die on my behalf. So when we remember what

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Christ has done, that ought to always evoke love from us. So now how does, let's maybe shift this a little bit.

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So moving away from a theological definition to a practical response.

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So what do you normally do when you love God? What are some of the things that you are compelled or impelled or you are moved to act upon because your heart is filled with love for him?

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Excellent. So there are, the word of God talks about what pleases God. God gives these to us as both precepts and commands.

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And because we love him, we keep his commands. We obey what he says. Excellent.

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What else? Amen. So we now can, we look through the events of life, the good things that come our way through the lens of God has provided this for me.

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And I respond in prayer and praise. We serve

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God and God is invisible. And the way that we serve him is normally in the body of Christ.

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So we serve other members of the body. We can serve strangers and we demonstrate the love of God in action by service.

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Because God has given us gifts, he has given us bodies and we use them in order to glorify his name and to demonstrate our love for him.

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So let's keep these in the back of our mind while we look at this example.

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Genesis 22. Actually we don't need to go to the text. It's a very famous text. Most of you should know this.

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Let's actually read both the verses. Can I have a volunteer to read this verse? Just raise your hand and it's right there on your sheet.

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You don't have to turn there. Okay, we have one and then

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I need a volunteer for the second one. Joshua 22 5 on the back side.

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Who'd like to read that? Okay, thank you. Let's read Genesis 22 2.

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Okay, let's spend a moment on this first. So as you know, the he there is referring to God.

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And he is talking here to Abraham, the father of Isaac.

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And just a brief background here for Abraham and Isaac. How old was

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Abraham when he had Isaac? Roughly, it's not a trick question. A hundred years old.

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Yeah, his wife was past the age of childbearing. How long was he waiting for the son

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Isaac? Well, probably his whole life after his marriage, but specifically waiting.

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16. Okay, that's close. He was, I think, 75 when he first had

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God promise him. So he was, he was waiting for a long time since God promised

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Isaac to him. And then he has this son who was born the, you know, the pride of his life, if you will, in a godly way.

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And then this, this young man is now this son is now a young child. He's not a little baby.

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And so he has grown to have affection upon this object of his love.

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And God describes it this way. Your son, this is not an adopted son, nor the son through Hagar, your only son,

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Isaac, this is your inheritance. This is the one through whom the promise of God will be fulfilled, whom you love.

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This is, you have placed your affection deeply and completely upon this, this one person.

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And then you need to go to the land of Moriah offer him there is a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which

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I will tell you now, this passage, I think it's very hard not to lose the parallelism between what happens here on Mount Moriah.

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And then 15 ,000 years later, in the time of Christ, you have

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God, the father sending his only begotten son, the son of his bosom, whom he loves, and then sacrificing him on behalf of us all.

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So when we think of the extent of God's love, we remember what God has done. And here you have a little picture of what happens in demonstrating the love of Abraham toward his

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God. So, let's just take a moment here, you know, I, whenever I come to this text, I always mentioned this.

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God does not ask any of us to sacrifice our children, at least not on a altar of burnt offering.

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Um, the, this is a period when God spoke to Abraham, the scriptures are not in place.

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This is a demonstration of the faith of Abraham. That is the reason why

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Abraham is called the father of faith. You have him in Romans, you have him in the New Testament, exemplifying faith.

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But I think for a moment, we want to look at the trust that Abraham has in God, and then the love that he has for God that would, that would spur him to go to the extents that very few of us would even be able to contemplate of.

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Um, I don't know how many of you can think of your child, um, being sacrificed on, uh, to God.

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So one of the things that teaches us here is how much more did Abraham love God than this one son for whom he waited all this time, whom he has placed his affection upon completely.

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So, um, so the question is this, to what degree did Abraham love

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God? How does that connect with the faith that he has in God? And what kind of love and faith are we called to have upon God today?

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That's basically where I'm going with this one text. So, uh, any thoughts on the love and faith that Abraham had and the call to love

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God in response to God's love for us? That's excellent. So Abraham knew something that God would take care of things.

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And, uh, you know, really the essence of our, I think, um, one of the responses in the back was we love

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God because he first loved us. And the more we understand the nature of God, the more we understand the power of God, the easier it becomes to be able to make those choices that seemed impossible.

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When you look at Abraham, you know, holding the knife over his son, he wasn't hesitating. He was willing, completely excellent.

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Actually you have, because you have both Genesis 22 as well as Hebrews 11, both of these texts together talk about what was actually happening in the heart of Abraham.

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Abraham's mind was not limited by here is a physical death that could potentially happen.

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He didn't know the mind of God that God would stop that sacrifice before he actually did it. He just knew the

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God of life and death who gave life to Isaac, that he's able to raise him up.

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And that's from Hebrews 11. And God actually provides a ram instead, uh, just before he is able to just before he sacrifices.

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But the point of this whole aspect is, do we love things or people in our lives so much that we are unable to trust

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God with whatever he brings about in their lives? There are, there are, and I think that's the heart of this response of love toward God that we want,

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I want us to just contemplate on this morning is, are there things in our life?

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Like this is 180 degrees, right? Black and white, uh, night and day.

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Here is this little kid who, uh, Abraham has, who love whom he loves and he's going to die.

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And if, uh, Abraham was just keeping his eyes focused upon the death of Isaac, he probably wouldn't have made that three days journey to go out into Mariah and sacrifice him.

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He would not have had the strength to take that knife and plunge it into Isaac or be willing to plunge it into Isaac.

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But his eyes were not fixed upon the object of his love. What God calls your, whom you love, but rather his eyes were fixed upon the

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God whom he loved, the God who gave the life to Isaac and that he would be a, he would trust

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God. Um, as the good God. And I think that's the biggest challenge most of us come through.

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When we look at a passage like this, he's got good that he would ask something like this, but, uh,

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Abraham was able to say, no, it is my God who gave me, um, Isaac and he is in faith.

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I trust him, his power, his love that he is able to give me, give him back to me. In fact, if you look more closely, uh,

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God had given him a promise through Isaac, all your descendants. And so Abraham did not know how, but he knew that God would fulfill his word that he promised, uh, through this son.

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So, um, any, any other thoughts on this? Things that we love so much that we may be tempted not to trust

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God or to love him in circumstances like these. To me, I think Abraham is one of those men that, um, give me shivers.

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You know, there are a lot of things in life that I think, you know, yeah, if this happens, you know, I know

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I will trust God. And then I, after you go through those, you're like, Oh, I didn't trust God, but he put me through that.

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So, so that I will trust him. Uh, but one of the things that, you know, many of us would find it very hard is if something were to happen to our children and to say, you know, my

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God is the one who gave them life. He is the one who gave them to me and that I need to be able to trust him no matter what.

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Okay. So let's go to the next verse. Um, Joshua 22 five, in one sense, if you go back to the previous passage, uh,

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God commanded Abraham to do something and Abraham obeyed, he said, this is what

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God told me to do. And I will do it. I will not shrink back from the command of God, no matter how terrifying it might be that it might cause the separation from my, uh, beloved son.

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But here, I want you to just observe a few things and then we'll, we'll, we'll apply it here in the end of Joshua.

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We see, be careful, be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses, the servant of the

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Lord commanded you. Here is a Pentateuch that the Israelites had as they're coming into the promised land. This is the word of God.

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Sorry. Equivalent for us would be, you have the Bible given to you, uh, pay very careful attention to observe it.

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Um, we we've seen earlier, the word of God is the source of revelation.

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It is the revelation of God to you. We cannot know anything about God and his ways apart from the

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Bible. So we need to be paying careful attention to it. And the, the primary command is actually to love your, the

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Lord, your God. And when you love him to walk or to pattern the lifestyle that you have in his ways.

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So as you understand from the word, what, what are the ways of God? What are the things that please him? You now pattern your life after that you walk in those parts that he has revealed in his word and you keep his commandments.

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So whatever God has commanded, his precepts, his principles, his commands, you cling, you keep them and you cling to him and you serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

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And I think this kind of summarizes many of the questions, many of your responses when we talked about what does it mean to love

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God? And this is actually like a summary verse of showing how you love God. And the only way we can know the right expression of our love is through the word.

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We understand from the word who God is and are, we love him. And then we express that love in these various ways, but central to it is to love him and to cling to him.

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So this week, when you were, when I was making those choices that were not necessarily

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God honoring more often than not, it is because I'm not very careful to observe the commandment and the law that God had revealed in his word.

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You know, the more time you spend in the word, the more the word of God permeates in your mind, the easier it becomes when you're making those choices to think, you know, here is what are his ways as opposed to my ways.

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Here is how I can walk in the paths that he has given as opposed to, you know, my, the choices that seem pleasing to me.

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You know, it is very hard to sacrifice your child because I think the better way is to protect my child and, and provide for in certain ways that may or may not be in line with the way

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God asked me to respond. So, so maybe let me just open this up for a moment here.

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So as you think about being careful to observe the law in order to love the

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Lord, your God, and then let that trickle down into keeping his commandments, clinging to him, serving him with all your heart and with all your soul.

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Can you think of some examples where by being very careful to study the word, you have seen the, the spirit of God guarding you and protecting you in order that you may love him in these specific ways by clinging to him and serving him with your heart and your soul.

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Amen. You know, when you think of the object lesson from Isaac's perspective, here he is about to face the sharp edge of the sword and seeing the hand of God providing for, you can just think of someone who is redeemed, right?

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I mean, when I knew I was destined for hell and then the hand of God intervenes and rescues me from there, here is a literal moments away from death and rescued by the hand of God.

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And you think about the life of Isaac, you know, a man in the fields, praying to God and he's, he's, he's a very unique, unique kind of guy.

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But I think you're, you're, you're spot on in terms of our acts of love toward God and trusting in him in the life of our family.

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There can be no better way than to say, you know, here are the circumstances that happen in the children's life.

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The world has come in and impinged upon them. Will I, um, what will be the means by which

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I will guard, protect, safeguard, and help them flourish in the ways of God?

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Is it by pointing them to my God, trusting in God in those choices I make so they no longer look at those specific choices.

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Oh, dad or mom said, we need to go this and not this because you know, they are scared that I would get into trouble.

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Or did my parents make these choices because they, they believe in the word of God.

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This is what the word of God tells them to do. And they have confidence in their God that these choices, whichever choices they made are based upon the character and the goodness of God that I too one day may trust in the, in the

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God whom they trust. And I think that's more essential than the choices themselves, because I could make a choice like in your example, you know, public school or not public school for the wrong reason.

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But when I do it for the right reason, because I love God and I make those choices and confidence in the character of God that teaches them something that's far more than the choice itself.

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Thank you. Any, any other thoughts on this? All right. Let's go to the next section. The object of our love. I actually have two parallel passages.

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We'll just read one of them. Why don't we just read the Matthew passage? If someone can read the

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Matthew five, this is from the Beatitudes. Just a section there. Who would like to read it? You can just read it from the handout.

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Thank you, Sam. Thank you. So here you see, I think the closest in terms of why this is a communicable attribute you see there.

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Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven for he makes his son rise on the evil and the good.

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And then if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? So the appeal that Jesus here makes is, you know, this is the character of your

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God. He is a benevolent God. He does good to all to those who would love him and those who would not on the evil and on the good.

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And in fact, as we understand the theology of mankind, God is the one who makes people good in order that they are able to respond in love to him.

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But given that this is the character, this is the one whom you call as father. Your love must reflect the love of God when it goes out to other people.

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So that's the basic thrust of this passage. Now. When when

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Jesus says love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, let's just talk about that for a moment and then we'll talk about tax collectors next.

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Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. What what what are you thinking? How do you translate?

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OK, this is a command we were talking about keeping God's commands. So here's a very simple command from simple is a straightforward command, maybe not as simple to apply.

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But how do you work out or how do you obey this command in showing your love for God, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you?

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Let's let's maybe work through this. So the first response was love is a choice.

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Most people think love is a feeling, right? I someone is nice to me. I feel nice toward them. And then I might do something nice also.

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But fundamentally, love is a choice. It's a commitment. When we think of the love of God, we think of him as Yahweh, the covenant keeping

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God. He chooses to place his affection upon us and he carries it through no matter how faithful or unfaithful we are on our side.

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He will. He is a God of steadfast love. He his love doesn't change on the basis of where we stand and it's a commitment and it is a choice.

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So from our perspective. When we meet people who are not very pleasant to to act in goodness and kindness, we need to first and foremost realize it's a choice we will choose to act in love.

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What else? And I think that's that's that's a crucial way to look at life.

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You know, you cannot control the way people respond to you. You could be the nicest person on this planet and people could still probably just not like you at all for whatever reason that that they might have.

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And very often they're not. You know, I'm just so concerned about preserving myself, my interests, that I lose sight of the fact that God is the one who placed me in that very circumstance, gave you the boss that, you know, yeah, we wouldn't choose such a boss, but the

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Lord places us there. And when, like you said, we turn from just looking at a position of self -interest to, you know,

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Lord, this man. No, I think many of you here have probably gone through circumstances like that where people don't have your well -being in mind for whatever reason, for good or bad reasons.

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But our response should always be, I'm here, God has placed me and I'm, you know, especially if they're an unbeliever, you want to say, you know, here is the probably the only believer who they were going to meet in close up front terms.

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And Lord, save this person. Lord, I seek their well -being in and through this all.

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I had another example, but I think, Marie, you wanted to say something. You're absolutely right,

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Stephen. Talking about what Jesus says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

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This evening, we're going to be looking at First Peter 315 again, where you respond to people's. Actually, it is written,

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First Peter is written in the context of suffering. When you face suffering, you need to respond, give a reason for the hope that is in you, but do it with gentleness and respect.

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You want to always showcase the love of God in the manner that would be honoring to Christ in those very circumstances that God has placed you.

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And and I think the reason he uses the example of tax collectors doing the same thing, which is love those who love you, is that's a natural response.

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But when you love those who hate you and persecute you, you are actually showing the love of God in a way that that is counter -natural, that makes people wake up and say, well,

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I wouldn't do that. Why is this person doing this? And that's precisely how we are salt and light, because we are taking the communicable attribute of God that he has upon the world, and then we are showcasing it in a way that they look up to the your father in heaven and give him the glory.

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And actually, the context of that versus what you said secondly, which is when they see the love of God in the midst of the body, they can see how you love one another and then they can glorify

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God. But I think that's a that's a thought to just keep in our mind even this week, as we think of, you know,

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I want to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. And one of the ways that we can reflect upon as we are image bearers of God, the redeemed of God, those who have experienced the love of God in our own lives, that we would showcase that love to those who do not love us.

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I'm sure each of you can pick a few names and say, I have no idea why, but that person sees me coming and they walk the other way or they say the other, you know, their smile becomes a frown.

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You know, there is maybe there are some things I should do differently. Maybe I should change those things.

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But some things you just you know, there are some things that people just don't love about you and you want to still be a reflector of God's love in their lives.

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And and so I think that's a good reminder for us. And that's so true. You know, when we talked about the love of God, we said

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God's love is inseparable from his holiness. And so, you know, there are some things that when we are salt and light, it either makes you thirsty for what they are missing in their life or it it becomes a point of contention.

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And, you know, here are these, you know, many often than not, I know when I was an unbeliever, I look at people who are

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Christians and I think, oh, you know, these are these do -gooders. They are these people who just have this high moral standards, not aware that these are just sinners saved by grace and I could be freely forgiven of my sins.

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So there is always the unbelievers perspective and they look at a Christian because they their minds are darkened by the prince of this world.

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So we we should not be coming at them with, oh, you know, how could you not know that I love you so freely?

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Because unless the light of God's truth in the gospel opens their heart to the nature of who

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God is and how they can be reconciled to him, they will not know. And so we need to be not just acting in love.

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And I don't want to discount the fact that we must act in a reflect the love of God in our actions, but we also need to be faithful in speaking the love of God in the gospel to people who need to hear it because it is only the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation.

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So many a time I can tend to stop short of, oh, let my actions. Oh, was it

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Francis of Assisi who said, I don't know the quote, but something along the lines of, you know, give the gospel at all times and use words if needed or something like that.

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And the idea being, you know, your life is a gospel, which is not not incorrect, but words are central to the gospel as well.

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We shouldn't be. We should not. We should show our love to those who need to know the gospel by giving them the gospel with words.

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All right, I think we are. We are almost out of time. Any other thoughts or comments on the love of God, especially in our actions, both in obeying

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God as well as in toward the. Toward the unlovable around us, let's pray a loving and gracious father, we thank you for your love that has overwhelmed our hearts.

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And I pray, father, this morning that as we hear your word proclaim, as we sing praises to you, as we worship you, that you,

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O Lord, would impress upon us the immensity of your love in and through the person of Jesus Christ.

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That you, O Lord, would send your only beloved son to die on the cross on our behalf.

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And that, O Lord, you have given us that very same love in our hearts by your spirit.

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And we can act in love. Respond in love to you, and we can act in love to the world that is around us.

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I pray that you would keep us faithful. And help us, O Lord, to look to you in the word that we would be a people who are compelled to love because of the compelling love that we have seen in the person of Jesus Christ, our