The Sin of Finding God Unlovely | Clip from Salvation in Full Color: Love to God

One question I think we could ask from the sermon is this, if this is the great commandment, then what if we were to say, have we ever considered that the great sin might be breaking the great commandment?

So the great sin that calls upon us the greatest expressions of God's everlasting wrath would be we have refused to love him. We have found him unlovely when there was no reason. It's a sin against truth.

It's a sin against everything that's right. It's a preferring everything bent and perverted and twisted above a God who is perfect. So what if hell will be populated by people, many of them who were very respectable and they only failed to do one thing.

They failed to treasure God. Well, another application from the sermon, we would say, is you could use this to stir your heart. So not just to test yourself. I mean, we read through this and it's very stirring.

It's not just, you know, he does a good job not to condemn you and say, okay, so if you're a Christian and you do have real love to God, but it's weak, well, you stink, you know? So why are you, you know, I've been a Christian for 32 years and I can look at so many aspects of my love to God, my return of love to him, and I think, have I even made any progress?

So that could be very despair producing, but he doesn't let that happen. And I think reading that, my heart stirred. One of the ways I would apply this to myself is taking his description, his very specific descriptions, and we only covered a few of them.

When he describes love to God, why not use that list as a prayer list? God, please don't let me be satisfied today without this expression of love to you. Like, God, help me to love you like this. I didn't even think of it, but now that I'm aware of it, I want that to be a regular and growing part of my Christian life.

So using his sub points, when he describes love to God, using those, not just as a test, but as a list to plead with God. If people can love you this way, I want to love you that way.

Yeah, and even to maybe, you know, to love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, strength. I want to love him more in each of those categories. God, help me to grow in my love in those ways.

Yeah, I mean, those ways that are mentioned by God, those are not hoops to jump through to earn his love. And we shouldn't see them as like terrible heavy weights to carry. What if we see it as a kindness, that he commands us to do what we now want to do?

Now I do want to love the Lord. How can I do it, God? How can I not waste my life? I want it to matter. I want my efforts to love you to be pleasing, because I do love you. And so he sweetly spells out the path and then gives us all we need each moment to walk it.

Well, he ends the sermon with this statement. He says, in a word, let the children of God abound more and more in their love to him. There is no danger of exceeding where the object is infinitely excellent and glorious.

To make the fire burn. Oh, remember, God has loved you with an everlasting love and with loving kindness, he has drawn you to himself. Jeremiah chapter 31. It is this love of God to us, he explains, that precedes any love we have for him, that stirs us to love him back.

Well, we hope that you are able to locate the sermon. It should be in the notes where you can find it and to read it by Joseph Sewell, Love to God. We really do appreciate being able to interact with you through the comments.

So if you have questions or just comments you'd like to leave, leave them below and we'll get back to them as we have a chance.