Ascension Presbyterian Lord's Day Worship

Thank you just a couple of announcements just a reminder that we will not be.

Having our fellowship meal today and the bathrooms are accessible through the front door. We've kept that door unlocked. The side doors will remain locked so if you need to use the restroom please go through the front door which is closer to the street.

Call to Worship and Psalm of Praise

Let's take just a moment and prepare our hearts for worship grace and peace to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome to the corporate worship of our God. Please stand. Oh come. Let us sing to the Lord.

Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with Thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms for the Lord is the great God and the great King. Above all gods in his hand are the deep places of the earth.

The heights of the hills are his also the sea is his for he made it and his hands formed the dry land. Oh come. Let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.

Great cause for rejoicing and worship isn't it. Let's pray together. Father Son and Holy Spirit. We ask that you would give us pure hearts of devotion to you that you would find our worship acceptable in your sight through the merits of the only mediator the Lord Jesus Christ.

No Lord. We pray that your people would be nourished and strengthened as they give back to you the weightiness of your glory with hearts filled with joy and thanksgiving. We ask these things in Jesus name.

Amen. Please kneel for the corporate confession of sin. Let us join together with one voice confessing our sins. Jesus forgive my sins. Forgive the sins that I remember and the sins that I have forgotten.

Forgive my many failures in the face of temptation the times I have been proud of my own achievements and those when I failed to boast in your works and the leniency I have shown myself. Forgive the lies I have told to others and the truths I have avoided.

Forgive me the pain I have caused others and the indulgence I have shown myself. Jesus have mercy on me and make me whole. Please stand. The Lord says I even I am the one who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and I will not remember your sins.

A list of accusations has been brought. We are guilty but we have Jesus. We have salvation. We have forgiveness and in him it's in this we rejoice. So people of God take heart today if you be in Christ your sins are forgiven.

Amen. Let us take up the hymnal.

And turn to number 208 Oh come all ye faithful number 208 please take up the.

Bulletin insert and find Psalm 53. It has 101 in the upper right corner. We're going to sing this to the tune of amazing grace. Psalm 53 to the tune of.

The Worthy Lamb Who Opens the Scroll

Amazing grace. Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.

A scroll written within and on the back sealed with seven seals and I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals. And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it.

And I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me weep no more. Behold the lion of the tribe of Judah the root of David has conquered so that he can open the scroll when it's seven seals.

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain with seven horns and with seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne when he had taken the scroll. The four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of the Saints.

And they sang a new song saying worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals. For you are slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on the earth.

Then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying to him who sits on the throne into the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.

And the four living creatures said amen. And the elders fell down and worshiped. This is.

The word of the Lord let us now confess our faith and the joyful singing of the Apostles Creed.

We take up the hymnals and turn to number 207. Good Christian men rejoice 207 we start to number 218 angels from the realms of glory please prepare now for the prayers of the people in seeing the multitudes.

Jesus went up on a mountain when he was seated. His disciples came to him then he opened his mouth and taught them saying blessed are the poor in spirit for.

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth blessed are.

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called.

Sons of God blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for.

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are you and they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake amen. Please stand and take up the bulletin and find the Psalm of the.

The Love of God in 1 John 4

Please turn in your Bibles to the book of 1st John chapter 4 begin reading in.

Verse 1 1st John chapter 4. This is God's holy and infallible word. Beloved. Do not believe every spirit but test the spirits whether they are of God because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.

And this is the spirit of the Antichrist which you have heard was coming and is now already in the world. You are of God little children and have overcome them because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

They are of the world therefore they speak as of the world and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us. He who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth in the spirit of error.

Beloved. Let us love one another for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.

And this is love. Not that we love God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved. If God so loved us we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time.

If we love one another God abides in us and his love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he and us because he has given us of his spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God God abides in him and he and God. And we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.

Please pray with me. Now the Lord. We thank you for your inscripturated word. We thank you for perspicuous clear passages of scripture like this. We ask that your people would be nourished and strengthened.

Oh Lord whatever need they have. We pray that you would supply it the power of your spirit. Oh Lord we are weak in body many with illness and weariness from the weak. I pray that you would reinvigorate us and make us strong in the Lord.

And ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated. The fourth admin advent theme is love. And today I've chosen to preach from 1st John chapter 4 with an emphasis primarily on verses 7 through 11.

And the title of the message today is the love of God. 1st John chapter 4 verses 7 through 11. Those of you who need some structure for an outline for notes first you'll find that we will be talking about.

This is found in verse 9. God has sent his only begotten Son into the world. The language from verse 9. The second point is derived entirely from verse 10. He loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Then finally number 3 since God has also loved us has so loved us we also ought to love one another that's found in verse 11. We're going to start and end on that same point. There is an inclusio that basically is this love one another which surrounds our text.

Probably the most well known scripture and most often memorized is John 3 16. And one of the dangers of that familiarity is that we hear it. It almost goes in one ear and out the other because it's just so familiar to us for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.

The part that I want us to think about in relation to the message today with this theme of love is for God so loved the world. In verse 17 of that same chapter in John's gospel it says. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world that that the world through him might be saved.

It's a very powerful verse and it's often lost in the shuffle of verse 16. God has sent his son not to condemn the world but to save it. Jesus Christ in his incarnation his sinless life his atoning death his burial his resurrection his ascension and in the second coming these are the grandest greatest displays of God's love.

It seems that the purpose of 1st John is to assure genuine believers that they have a real faith a sincere faith. But today we're going to focus on this concept of the love of God. The reason I want us to focus on that is because I think it is probably one of the most neglected topics in the life of the church and really the ultimate causality for all that we see in redemptive history.

This theme has been preached by me and two or three occasions in the last couple of years because it has come up in the text I want to emphasize it again today hopefully to your edification and our building up in the faith.

What is this concept and this notion of the love of God. And how is the love of God so beautifully manifested in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ in this book John has already stressed the centrality of love as a defining evidence of the new birth that's riddled throughout 1st John.

His exhortation in our section is for us to love one another. Verse 7 and verse 11 that inclusio that I mentioned they both say love one another. And the reason we are called and are able to perform this great idea of loving one another is because God's great demonstration of love its substance meaning and purpose is found climactically in the sending of his son so that our texts again beginning at verse 7 the true child of God both believes and loves.

It's really important for us to see this if you are aware of some church history of modern times about a hundred years ago the social gospel was very popular and it was meeting the material needs and building hospitals and things like that.

And this was all done under the banner of Christ. And it is good to meet needs and it's good to build hospitals. But without the proclamation of Jesus Christ and his lordship and his salvation the gospel.

There's a hollowness to the acts of kindness and good that people do now certainly in our time you could say we have a want of good works. But to be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ implicitly means that we have put all of our confidence in him.

That we are looking to him alone for our salvation that we we find in him alone our deliverance. That first word in verse 7 beloved this is a form of agape which is found throughout this section. I want to point out to you something about this word beloved.

To be beloved in reference to Christians means that we are beloved by God that we are beloved by Christ and therefore we beloved one another beloved of one another. There's something very powerful in this very simple language unbelievers have a form of love.

There's a lot of this love wins and love is love brethren loving is entirely defined by God. This is one of the big apologetic areas that we need to defend the Christian faith. This idea and this notion this amorphous term of love God himself defines what love is for he himself is love.

So in order to understand what it means to love one another you have to understand what it means to be beloved. Christians are the beloved of God. They are the beloved to Christ and in fact they have their salvation in the capital.

Be beloved who is Christ. Christ is the beloved one of the father. Their salvation is found in their attachment and union to Christ. You and I need to love one another because we are loved by God. I will not be giving a lot of time to this today.

But isn't it interesting that the two greatest commandments have as their centerpiece love. Love for God and love for our neighbor. So it seems that the Christian would be a very diligent student of the word and he would be searching out and trying to determine and find out what love really is.

We have to acknowledge we have a distorted view of love. It's been influenced by popular culture upbringing our own sentimentality. Love is defined by God alone and we have seen the grandest expression of love.

We we peer into the mind and revelation of God and the fulfillment of promises. When we see that God in Christ has loved the world she remains in condemnation without him. But the love of God compels and Christ comes.

Look again here at verse 8 says he who does not love does not know God for God is love. It would be tragic for us as Christians to not know how to love our spouses and our children our parents as God has called us or to love our fellow Christian in the life of the church.

I think all of us should take a seriously today and take a take a stand and make a purpose and resolve that we are going to search out the scriptures and to find out really what it means to love. Not only to love God but to love one another.

We're going to find that we have some worldliness some syncretism has crept in and we have a distorted view of love. God is the originator the creator of love. It's his idea. God himself perfectly loves.

And at the end of the day our salvation and our redemption is only because of the love of God. Let's consider our first point. In this first nine the love of God was manifested toward us. What is it. The incarnation.

It's the life and ministry and atoning work and triumph over death and sin on the cross and the resurrection and the ascension. God has demonstrated his love toward us. He has sent his only son into the world.

This is what we ought to be celebrating today. When we love each other we want to give each other good gifts. And sometimes the gift itself is overshadowing the substance of love. How much does God love his creatures if he would send his only begotten son into the world.

That the world that the people of God that the elect might live through him. He's this glorious only begotten. There isn't another one like this as we said in the last couple weeks. There's not another virgin birth.

There's not another Savior before or since at just the right time in the fullness of time the promises of God being revealed. Jesus Christ has come into the world. Good Christian men rejoice. The love of God has been manifested in Christ.

There's another element to this idea of loving and this should shape our love for each other. For the believer to love means to actively do what the Lord prefers under his power and direction. You could say I love my wife in my way.

You might be wanting the believer is to actively do what the Lord prefers. It is unloving for us to not proclaim to our neighbor the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is unloving of us not to tell our neighbor the reality of their danger because they have rejected the only salvation that is found in Christ.

If we are silent we are unloving to our neighbor for us to be silent in the face of an eternal hell. When it concerns our neighbor it's very unloving. It seems things are upside down today. The culture says that toleration is the greatest expression of love.

To never say what you're doing is wrong would be the greatest expression of love. It's a counterfeit kind of love. God has revealed his great love most pointedly most sharply most distinctively in the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Continue the end of verse 9 it says he sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. And the question has to be asked why. God is righteous and holy and just God would be right to send sinners to condemnation eternally.

Why does he send the Son into the world. Why does he give us life the end of the day. The only answer is because he loves us. Mark you mentioned I think this is true in corporate America. As an aside we were talking remember R .C. Sproul talking about exhausting someone's knowledge with why questions or a problem that you're trying to solve in the corporate environment.

The pattern of these questions that I'm going to offer you. We could we could interject other questions and other proper answers. But I want you to see how this progresses and it's utterly captivating.

It will grab your heart and it'll be a cause of your rejoicing if you if you catch this using the argumentation of verse 9 when asked a series of questions and I'm going to give it a basic answer. And again we could have put a different question and different answers would have been legitimate.

But watch the progression of the logic. Why did God send Jesus the word may flesh into the world. On your own mind you should be thinking of their scriptural answers that you could come up with. I'm gonna say as an answer to save his people.

Very basic child could understand that answer. Why did God send Jesus the word made flesh into the world to save his people. Why does God desire to save his people. But follow the progression. The reason that Jesus comes to save.

Well why does he want to save his people. Well the answer at least one of the answers you could give is to reconcile them to himself. Why does God desire to save his people that he might reconcile them to himself.

How does God reconcile his people to himself through the sacrifice of his son. Why does his son have to be sacrificed to satisfy divine justice. That sin might be punished and atoned. For why does divine justice have to be satisfied about the holiness of God.

We have to go back to one of the earlier answers for God to reconcile sinners to himself in order that man might commune with God. Why does God want to commune with man. Because he loves them. Why does he love them.

Now we've exhausted the answers because he loves them. So we think about the law court and rightly so in the reformed world we are very committed to justification by faith alone. But there's something very impersonal about it in our own imagery in our minds the righteous judge has to be satisfied.

And I think we are content with the word acquittal. But what's happening when God saves sinners is the judge is pounding the gavel and he is declaring us to be righteous. But he comes down off of the bench and he grabs us and he takes us back to his house with him.

And he feeds us and he embraces us and he loves us. Our conceptions of God as impersonal and austere are wrong. Our God is a God of relationship of covenant fellowship of communion of love. If we were to have a big tapestry here in the church building and it had all of the intricacies of redemptive history woven into the beautiful task tapestry of history.

And we were to find a thread to pull on that would be intertwined throughout the entirety of the tapestry. That single thread would be the love of God. The exhaustive end of all of the why questions is the love of God brethren.

Christ has come into the world to bring salvation. He's come to live a sinless life. He's come to suffer a brutal death. A brutal death which includes to be have God his father turn his back on him and for him to become sin for us.

He does all of this because of love. I was reflecting on this idea today early this morning and last evening. Love is what makes my life great. Love of wife and children. They say they love me. That makes me feel really good.

The best things in life come through love and children of God. You who are in Christ are loved by God. It is utterly astounding that you would be the objects of his affection. There is no other reason other than he loves you.

You're not righteous. You're unholy and profane. And he makes you holy. He washes you and purifies you and makes you clean. And all of this has to be resolved by a final conclusion that God does this because he loves us.

Jesus Christ came in the world because he loves us. The father sent him to do this work in the world to bring many sons to glory because he loves us. The Holy Spirit applies the work of redemption. That bloody cross gets applied to you and to your account because he loves you.

Verse 10 it says. And this is love. Not that we love God but that he loved us and became the propitiation for our sins. The question of divine justice comes again in verse 10. How is this divine justice going to be satisfied.

God doesn't wink at sin. He doesn't brush it under the table. God himself deals with sin in the person of Christ. He lays upon him the iniquity of us all. Christ is the satisfaction the appeasement for our sins because he is our sins are forgiven.

Tonight and tomorrow in your celebrations. I want you to realize that the greatest gift in your life is that you have been loved by God. That Christ has taken you to be his bride. Isn't that something that he wants you to be part of him to live with him eternally.

A couple other ideas I'd like to consider. We get to verse 11. It follows that the people of God if they have been loved by God also ought to love one another. I believe Mark touched on this in his Ephesians message related to identity.

Our identity in Christ makes all of these things possible. They have to be appropriated. You should not have strife in your marriage because you have been numbered among the beloved and your spouse has been to Christ has been your peace.

You can be at peace with one another. As Mitch prayed. Our church should never be riddled with strife and backbiting. We are the redeemed in Christ that should cause us to be charitable and loving in our dealings with one another.

Our entire ethical and moral responsibility is summed up in our love for neighbor. Beloved. Let us love one another. For love is of God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Verse 11. Beloved.

If God so loved us we also ought to love one another. There is an incredible list of texts about the love of God is going to read a couple of those to you have a word of application will close here. In Isaiah 54 it says.

For the mountains shall depart in the hills be removed. But my loving kindness shall not depart from you. Nor shall my covenant of peace be removed says the Lord who has mercy on you. That mercy word has a very strong connection to love as well.

Romans 5 8 God shows his love for us. In that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. That verse is very powerful because it shows man's absolute inability. He contributes nothing to his salvation.

We were at enmity with God and we were enemies of God and the love of God conquered us brought us into his family. Psalm 36 7 says how precious is your loving kindness. Oh God. Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings.

Most famously Romans 8. What shall separate us from the love of Christ. Verses 38 and 39. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The incarnation is because of the Trinity's love for the elect. The love of God is the reason brethren we have the most privileged place and standing we could have in the universe we have. Christ is our elder brother our friend and our Savior our bridegroom.

We have the Holy Spirit who intercedes for us with groanings that we cannot even utter and lost in all. This is a loving father who sends his son into the world that we might live through him. The love is this.

We didn't love God but he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. In closing I want to run an idea by you. There is a romantic dance that happens when a couple begins to court and to get to know one another.

And somehow the the man finds the lady attractive in some way and she reciprocates her attraction her affection for her suitor. And this becomes really the basis if she likes me I can like her or vice versa.

What's so astounding about this concept. And why our view of love is so deficient. We love for reciprocation. Our God loves out of his essence. It is fitting for us to reciprocate our love for God. We should be worshipers.

We should have great adoration for our God when we consider what he has done and how he has loved us. But the text tells us we didn't love him and yet he loves us. This is the great news of the incarnation.

This is the great news of our salvation in Christ. The love of God has prevailed. It has conquered hard hearts. It has defeated sin. It has defeated unbelief. It is defeated unholiness and unrighteousness.

How's your love today. Is your love for your family members church members. Is it defined by God. Or have you made up your own definitions. How do we know what love is. And 1st John it says by this we know love because he laid down his life for us.

And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Would you lay down your life for the brethren. Maybe some of you. You might say you see a deficiency in our love. We lay down our lives for our spouse and our children.

Certainly. But if we have been loved by God we would have this great abundance of love for the brethren. How do we know what love is. We know what it is. Because of the incarnation the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And it tells us that this is all because of the love of God. To be beloved has two special applications. This is a title of Messiah Christ he's beloved beyond all others and we find ourselves in the beloved in Christ.

The second application of this idea of being beloved is that we as Christians are beloved by God beloved by Christ beloved one to another. Christmas it has a lot of trappings. Today is not really Christmas Eve as much as it is the Lord's Day the Sabbath.

But in the spirit of this season let us think rightly about good gifts. The best gift has come and it's Christ. It rivals. It has no rival. What did you get for Christmas three years ago. Didn't tell you the trinkets the plastic the paper will be forgotten by next week.

But this gift is eternal. What is this love that John speaks of. The one who is born of God. God himself is the one who creates it and defines it. You better become well schooled. And what love really is.

It's only found in the scripture. You have contradictory notions about what love is. The scripture tells us what it is. How is God's love manifested to us. He sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him.

Have we loved God. No. But God has loved us and has sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. If God has so loved us in this way it follows that we ought to love one another today. I hope your hearts will be filled with love knowing that the origin of that love is the love of God which comes really out of nothing as it concerns you it only comes from his character and his grace and his mercy.

Salvation has come to you and to your house only because God has loved you. In this we can rejoice. Amen. Let's pray together. Oh Lord. We are an unloving people. We are quick to keep a record of wrongs.

We are unforgiving. We have a Hollywood sentimental view of love and Lord that causes many problems for us. We ask Oh Lord that we would love as you have defined it. That we would see in Christ the the great love of God for sinners and Lord.

That our hearts would be filled with such joy and thanksgiving and gratitude today and tomorrow and this week as we consider what Christ has done in his coming. Surely we have been loved by God if he would send his only begotten son amplify and magnify these in our hearts.

We pray in Jesus name. Let us continue our worship through the.

Offering and the Lord's Supper

Presentation of our tithes and offerings. Please stand and let us pray our gracious God and Father. We thank you that you have built into the worship of you a time of.

Rendering part of what you have given to us back for the use of your church. We have just heard Lord that you have given out of your love. I pray father that we have given out of our love Lord. We pray that as we reflect upon how much you have given that we have likewise given in our generosity.

We pray Lord that as these funds are received by the church that they may be used to further your kingdom and that you would give great wisdom in that use. We ask all these things and more also in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen. Let us glorify our great loving God in the singing of the glory of the Lord be with you. Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the Lord. It is right and a good and joyful thing that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to you.

Oh Holy Lord Father Almighty Everlasting God. Because you sent your beloved son to redeem us from sin and death and to make us heirs in him of everlasting life that when he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world we may without shame or fear rejoice to behold is appearing therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we praise and magnify your glorious name evermore praising you and singing of the name of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen. We pray that as we reflect upon how much you have given that we have likewise given in our generosity we pray Lord that as these funds are received by the church that they may be used to further your kingdom and that you would give great wisdom in that use.

We ask all these things and more also in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen to your son our Savior Jesus Christ Holy Institution in remembrance of his death and passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood.

We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. And the night in which our Lord was betrayed he took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying hey eat this is my body which is broken for you.

Likewise after supper he took the cup and when he had given it thanks he gave it to them saying drink this all of you. This is the new covenant in my blood. As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death and till he comes.

Therefore we proclaim the faith. Let us pray together. We do not presume to come to this your table. Oh merciful Lord trusting in our own righteousness but in your manifold and great mercies we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.

But you are the same Lord who always shows mercy. Grant us therefore gracious Lord so to eat the flesh of your dear son Jesus Christ and the drink of his blood that our sinful bodies may be cleaned by his body and our souls washed through his most precious blood and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us amen Christ our.

Passover was sacrificed for us the gifts of God for the people of God as we've partaken in this meal which demonstrates the great love that God had for us and the sacrifice of his son our Savior Jesus Christ.

Let us now make this commitment together.

Almighty and ever-living God we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of your son our Savior Jesus Christ and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of your son and heirs of your eternal kingdom.