Love And Joy - [John 15:9-11]

The gospel in broader evangelicalism is being reimagined, re -engineered, re -examined, and I would say, contra

Jesus' warning in Matthew 7, 13, enter by the narrow gates. There are people out there just trying to make the gate as broad as possible.

In the last few weeks, I don't know if you've been paying attention to the, I don't know what it's called, the

Christian news, the evangelical gazettes, I don't know, you know, but just items that pop up in the news, and one of them is this conference that's being held.

I don't even know if I have the location. It's somewhere in the Midwest. It's either Ohio or Kentucky or something like that.

Oh, sorry, St. Louis, and it's called Revoice, not

Rejoice, Revoice, which I think, you know, clever marketing strategy there, but I have this piece here from Alan Moeller, and he says, in part, how about this, what it is is a gathering of so -called evangelicals, and I say so -called because I think they're really outside of our camp here, so -called evangelicals, and what they're trying to do is sort of broaden the tent and make it acceptable for the

LGBTQ, you know, all these different sexual deviancies, and say that they're

Christians. So, he says, where does this lead?

Consider this session summary from the conference. The session is entitled, quote,

Redeeming Queer Culture and Adventure, and we are told that it asks, where does, or what does queer culture and specifically queer literature and theory have to offer us who follow

Christ? What queer treasure, honor, and glory will be brought into the new

Jerusalem at the end of time? I mean, this is even

Woodhay and Stubble. It says the organizers of the conference want to celebrate

LGBTQ culture, even styled as queer culture, while claiming to hold a biblical model of sexual morality.

Those two things are incongruent. They don't go together. This isn't even oil and water.

You can't shake these items together enough to make them go together. And then, also recently, we've had a famous pastor,

Andy Stanley, tell the church that it's time to unhitch from the

Old Testament. And what he means by that is just be done with it. And I'm like, let's just think about some of the things the

New Testament says about the Old Testament. You know, it is given for our instruction. These examples in the

Old Testament are given for our instruction in the church. Jesus says the Old Testament speaks of him.

So, how are we going to unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament since that's the basis for Christianity?

We can't. But people are attacking the sufficiency of Scripture.

They're attacking the accuracy of Scripture. They're attacking, ultimately, the gospel. You don't have to repent of these sins.

You don't have to change your mind. I mean, what do we do? What would be part of the reasoning behind getting rid of the Old Testament?

There's a lot of teaching about what in the Old Testament? Here's a hint. Morality, right?

Let's just get rid of all that. That's just so old school. Let's just get rid of it. And I was like,

I said to somebody, I said, can you imagine, I actually posted this on Facebook, can you imagine some kind of conference to get together and we're all the thieving

Christians and we're going to get together and have a conference about the culture of theft and what we hope it will bring into the kingdom of God.

Or, you know, we're a gathering of adultering Christians and we want to see what adultery will bring into heaven.

You know, what it will, what kind of literature and what kind of treasure ultimately it will. We would think that is bizarre.

Well, it's just as bizarre to suggest that other things are somehow more acceptable just because our culture and our world tells us that they are.

We want to stick to the gospel, to the scripture, what it says, the lessons that it gives us, the truth that it gives us.

With that said, let's open our Bibles to John chapter 15 as we continue to move through the gospel of John.

And it just underscores to me what I said last, I think for all of us, what

I said last week, which is there are basically two competing worldviews.

There is a worldview that says there is one way to heaven, that there is one way that is right and that is

God's way. And then there's a worldview that says basically anything goes. You can do as you please.

There are no gray spaces in the Bible. There's black and white, especially when it comes to obeying

God and not obeying Him. And it's really underscored by what

Jesus himself says in John 15. Let's read that. John 15, I'm going to start in verse 1 and read through verse 11.

Our Lord says, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser.

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit.

Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers.

And the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.

These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.

Well, last week, actually the last two weeks, we spent looking at what I call divine viticulture.

That is to say the metaphor of the vine, the branches and the vine dresser really identified as the son,

Jesus, believers and God, the father is the vine dresser. And then we saw how the father and the son sovereignly work in the lives of believers.

And they I don't know what I don't want to call it conspire, but they work together, right?

To produce fruit in the lives of believers, to produce good works in the lives of believers.

And those are the ones who are in the vine, in Christ. We also saw at the end or we saw the end of those, the end results of what happens to those who like Judas Iscariot appear to be in the vine, appear to be attached to Jesus Christ, but are not.

Jesus tells us that God will remove them and send them to eternal punishment in hell.

That's what the burning is. And the topic of hell is not pleasant. But if we study scripture, it can't be avoided.

When the Bible speaks of salvation, it speaks of us being saved.

The question always should come in our minds. Well, what are we being saved from? And we're being saved from ultimately the wrath of God.

And the wrath of God is that burning. It is that destruction. It is that eternal punishment in hell that we all deserve.

But God in his grace spares those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ from it. Now, this morning,

I have five hows, five how questions to help us understand how the love of God should affect believers.

And basically, here's a hint, should produce joy. The love of God for us should produce joy.

If Jesus loves you, should that change how you live and how you think? Yes. And if it doesn't fill you with a desire to obey and to joyfully look forward to heaven, then something is amiss.

If you're lacking contentment in your life, I would suggest that this morning's message might be helpful to you.

Our first how. How does the father love Jesus?

How does the father love Jesus? And the answer is in, well, not the answer. We're going to explain how he does.

But in verse nine, we see this as the father has loved me. So we need to understand that.

Why? Because it's so I have loved you in the same way I have loved you. The father has loved me.

So we need to understand how the father has loved the son. Jesus uses this comparison to help the disciples understand the love he has for them.

Now, let's just imagine for a moment that the disciples have no idea of how the father loves the son.

They don't know. So when Jesus says, you know, just like the father loves me, that's how

I love you. Then what does it mean when he says, that's how I love you? It would mean nothing.

They would have no clue. But they do understand it. One writer puts it this way.

He says the paradigm for the relationship between Jesus and his disciples is the same as the relationship between the father and the son.

In other words, we can only grasp the love Jesus has for us if we grasp the love that the father has for Jesus.

So we have to understand something about the relationship between the members of the Trinity.

And you're sitting there and you're thinking, well, this sounds like theology. Why are we always talking about theology? Well, here we go.

If you don't like theology, I made up a term here. If you don't like theology, I like this term, of course.

That's why I made it up. I'm terming you, if you don't like it, a -theologic.

You don't like theology. You think theology is too weighty, too deep. Here's a clue for you, though.

Jesus wasn't. That's why he's using this analogy. He wants them to understand this.

He wants them to grasp these theological principles. Now, if you're indifferent to theology, you can take it or leave it.

You're not really against it, but you can take it or leave it. Well, then, I didn't make up a term here. You're just agnostic.

You're theologically agnostic. What does that mean? To be agnostic means to be against knowledge, which means you are willfully ignorant.

You want to be ignorant of theology. Well, I don't think scripture permits that. And certainly, Jesus was not willfully ignorant about theology.

And he wanted his disciples to understand these theological principles so they would be, what?

Comforted because of the situation they were in. He was about to leave. He told them that. So how did he comfort them?

By telling them that he loved them, but the only way they could really understand that love was to understand the love that the

Father had for him. Now, the tense of the verb, as the

Father has loved me, it indicates that that love is both timeless, in other words, it has no origin, and it's also perfect.

And when you think about the timeless aspect of it, we could also illustrate it by going to John 17, the high priestly prayer where Jesus is.

He's praying because he knows he's about to leave, and he's praying for whom? For the disciples.

Not for himself, but for the disciples. And he prays for them, and not for them only, but for all of us.

We don't have time to study all that, but it's there. Read it for yourself, John 17. But we will read verse 24.

When we talk about it being timeless, this is the same verb form, you know, you have, or you love me.

It's the same verb form that we have in our text here this morning. John 15, 9.

Before the foundation of the world means before creation, before anything existed, when all there was was the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, just the three persons of the Trinity. And they existed in perfect love and perfect harmony, and they needed nothing.

He always loved the Son. But, of course, the Father loves Jesus because He is the perfect Son.

And He always has been. They've always had that relationship. John 10, 17.

Talking about the love that the Father has for the Son, Jesus says this, It's the ultimate sacrifice

He made. John 3, 35. Jesus says the Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.

He completely trusts the Son. John 5, 20. There's an intimacy, an ongoing relationship between the

Father and the Son, always, from before time began, and will exist all through all eternity.

So, how does Jesus love believers? How does

Jesus love those who are Christians? I have five ways here.

Let's look again at the text. Well, firstly, before time began.

And how do we know that? John 15, 16 says, when

Jesus is talking to the disciples, and He says, I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.

Now, if you don't like that one, and you think, well, me, that's only for the disciples, right? It's only for those 11. Remember, Judas is gone.

Consider this. Let's turn for a moment to Ephesians 1. I'm just going to read a couple of verses, but I want us to be reminded of this.

This is in the introduction to the letter to the church at Ephesus, a circular letter, actually.

But Paul is writing, and he interrupts his normal introduction with verse 3.

He's giving them these typical greetings, but he can't stand it anymore, and he wants them to understand this theological truth.

Verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even, listen, even as He chose us in Him, that is to say in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

Now, you say, well, that's the Father choosing us.

How do we know that Jesus loved us back then? Well, first of all, we would know this, that the

Trinity does everything in perfect harmony. So if the Father set His affection upon us and He chose us, then

Jesus set His affection upon us too. But one commentator puts it this way. He says, if all things were created in Him, we'd read that in Colossians 1, then it is no less true to say that earlier still it was in Him that our election took place.

He is the foundation, origin, and executor. All that is involved in election and its fruits depends on Christ.

In other words, He said He willingly took us in Him before the foundation of the world.

So that's the first way, before time began. Second way, by entering time. Jesus, existing outside of time with the

Father, entered into His creation. Jesus came to earth, why?

On a rescue mission, motivated by love. Luke 19 .10 says this. You can go back to John 15, by the way.

Luke 19 .10 says this, For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.

Right? This is why He came here. The Word became flesh in order to save those who hated

Him. We hated Him before our hearts were transformed. We were

His enemies. That is love. We learned that from Romans 5. This is love.

It's not, you know, He didn't die for the lovely. He died for the unlovely.

He didn't die for His, well, ultimately He made us His friends. But we were His enemies when

He died for us. Third way that Jesus loves us, by identifying with us.

This is kind of interesting. Of course, I think it's interesting because I introduced it.

Jesus equates attacking, persecuting the church, believers, with what?

Attacking Him. In Acts 9, we would read this. When He confronts Saul on the road to Damascus, He says,

Luke writes this, He says, But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if any be found, or if he found any belonging to the way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him.

And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And he said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

Well, Jesus was dead. But the point is, He so identified with believers, who were being persecuted by Saul, that He said, you are persecuting me.

So He loves us enough to identify with us in that way. He also loves us constantly.

If we just think about how He loved the disciples, and knowing

He loves us no less than He loves these men. It says in John chapter 13 verse 1,

Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the

Father, listen, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

With everything that He had, with all of His will and all of His strength,

He wanted to prepare them right to the very end. And His concern right then was not about Judas' betrayal.

Just imagine, I mean, I know how I would feel. Because I know, I just know me a little bit anyway.

I just know that if one of my best friends betrayed me, I'd be really bugged about that.

And I wouldn't be concerned about how everybody else was responding to the fact that I was about to be put to death.

I'd be thinking about myself, right? But that's not Jesus. That's not

Him. He loved His own right until the very end. Right until the moment where He could no longer say anything to them.

He loved them. You ever think about it this way,

I mean, when you start feeling self -pity, when you start feeling like, you know,

I don't know if my life is really all that valuable. Well, let me ask you this way.

Does Jesus take time off from loving you? Does He stop at some point and just go, you know what, this afternoon,

I'm not going to be concerned about those believers, about this individual or that individual?

And the answer is what? What did He say? He said, Great Commission, I will never leave you or forsake you.

He loves you. His love is constant. And of course, the greatest love, the fifth way is by dying for us, by dying for us.

John 15, 13, greater love has no one than this, that someone laid down his life for his friends.

Now, I appreciate the fact, because as a former police officer, you know, police officers like to use this.

And I'm like, well, I just don't really think that this is what it's talking about. Jesus loved us so much that he laid down his own life for us.

We would see that again in John chapter 10, verse 11. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

That's love. And our response to this, Jesus says in verse nine is to do what?

It's to abide in his love. It's to abide in his love. So we've seen how does the father love

Jesus? How does Jesus love believers? Now we're going to see our third, how, how do believers abide in the love of Jesus?

How do they? Well, it was kind of almost hinted at in verse nine, but it's explicated a little further in verse 10.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Now that just kind of makes us take a breath and just think, okay, wait a minute.

I have to obey the commandments of God in order to remain in the love of Jesus.

I can't do that. Even if you boil the commandments down to what it says in Mark chapter 12, and you shall love the

Lord, your God, with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

And then the second great commandment is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Well, guess what?

If it's just those two things, you're smoked. So how are we ever going to abide in the love of Christ if we don't obey his commandments?

Well, it's just a few verses ago, he said this. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. There seems to be this emphasis on obedience.

Now, again, we have to think about the overall framework here, the overall situation.

They're in the upper room discourse. Jesus is getting ready to leave. The disciples are, you know,

I was listening to a part of Lenten Sunday School. You know, we might say that they're clinically depressed here.

They're pretty depressed, right? Things are bad from their viewpoint, and they're about to get worse.

They don't really understand the full bit of it, how bad it's going to get. He's urging them to obedience.

But what does he say? He knows that Peter is going to fall.

He knows that Peter is going to deny him. He knows what, ultimately, he knows what all the disciples are going to do.

So it's not like he expects perfect obedience. Well, then what does this mean? You know, does it mean that only perfection would demonstrate love?

No, because we know that we'd be dead. We know that we'd be sunk. We'd have no chance. But these are, as I said before, these are warnings.

These are exhortations to obedience. Let's consider the same writer,

John. Let's consider 1 John 1 .8 for a moment. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

In other words, John, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the same John who was there, who heard this, says, if we say that we don't sin, we're liars.

Did he fail to understand what Jesus, what he recorded

Jesus saying in John chapter 15? And the answer is no. We need to keep reading in 1 John 1 .9.

If we confess our sins, we're not going to stop sinning completely.

But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

What's the point here? That we ought to hate sin and strive to put it to death, to extinguish it from our lives.

We will sin, but we should also be moved to repent. And when we view our sin as God does, when we see it as God does, and that's what it means to confess, to say the same as, to view our sin the same way that God views it, then how do we see it?

We hate it. We loathe it. We flee from it. And ultimately, the death of Christ is sufficient to cover it.

So when he urges us, I mean, it's similar to me.

You know, if you love me, you will, you know, hate your mother, father, sister, brother.

These are comparisons meant to say to us, you won't love sin. You'll hate your sin.

And all of our sins are atoned for, but we never should be presumptuous about them.

We should never take them lightly. After all, if we just think about it this way, our sins were the cause, the necessity for Jesus to suffer and die.

We will never fully keep the commands of the Lord, but he commands us to do that. We should strive to keep them.

If you were in Christ, he did not die for you because you were obedient. Oh, you know,

Steve is obedient enough. I think I'll die for him. No, he did not set his affections upon you because you loved him, right?

God loved us first. The futility of being a law keeper ought to be evident. You will fail.

You will sin every single time. You're not good enough. And that's the point.

You must abide in the love of Jesus because of his finished work on your behalf, not because of your efforts.

However, if you fail to put forth effort, that may well indicate that you've never known the love of Christ.

In other words, if there's no desire for obedience in you, then we have an issue again.

First John chapter three, verse nine, first John three, nine. John writes this.

No one born of God. That is to say, a Christian, a believer makes a practice of sinning for God's seed.

The seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.

This idea of practice of sinning, doing the same sins over and over and over again.

And what's having absolutely no remorse, no thought that I need to stop. I need to repent.

I need to talk to somebody. I need some accountability. I have to do something to stop, to break this cycle.

If that is true of your life, there was a say, no one born of God.

This is not what Christians do. Why? Because you have the seed of God in him.

Well, in what sense? You have the Holy Spirit residing in you. You have God's word that you've heard and that you read.

You have Jesus. You have the father. However, you cannot, it says here, keep on sinning.

This is not what you want to do. You have a new nature, new desires. Ultimately, Jesus loves believers because they are, their lives are not the standard by which they are judged.

And aren't you thankful for that? His life is the standard by which you are judged. His life is imputed to you.

Okay, our fourth, how question, how does Jesus abide in the father's love?

Again, look at verse 10, just as I, in other words, we are to obey just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.

Well, this is the standard. Jesus is the standard. The reasons, reason we are

Christians is because we recognize his perfection. Jesus proclamation of his obedience, by the way, is in the perfect tense, meaning it covers every single moment of his life from birth to death.

And his perfection has ongoing significance. That's what a perfect tense does. Usually it's a once for all with ongoing events, but this is a kind of a, a universal, a more comprehensive, perfect tense.

Jesus kept the father's commandments without variation or fault. He kept them perfectly.

When Jesus was on the cross, he said, it is finished. He meant the work that the father sent him to do, and he did it all perfectly.

He also says that he's constantly abiding in the father's love. And it's because of the, the obedience of Jesus and his finished work that this is true.

One writer says this, Hendrickson says this. He says, the love of Jesus, the love of Jesus was operating during every instant of our exercise of love.

It precedes our love. It accompanies our love. It follows our love in the very process of doing this, creates more love toward him in our hearts.

So that as it were, another love cycle begins this one, even better than the first.

Thus, the believer feels himself drawn ever closer to God in Christ. He ever abides in that love.

In other words, what he's suggesting is as we obey the love of Christ abides in us, and so even though we stumble and we fall, the love of Christ causes us to want to obey more.

And as we obey more, we love him more. But we only love him because he loved us first, and he is growing us.

And our obedience, poor as it may be, gives us greater love for Christ so that we experience a greater obedience for him.

It sort of feeds on itself as it were. That's sanctification being conformed into the image of Christ.

We put off sin. We put on righteousness. So the four questions we've seen so far, how does the father love

Jesus? How does Jesus love believers? How do believers abide in the love of Jesus?

How does Jesus abide in the father's love? And fifth, our fifth, how, how do believers have the fullest joy?

How do believers have the fullest joy? Look at verse 11. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you.

All these things, back to verse one, abiding in Jesus, bearing fruit, having prayers answered, abiding in his love as we obey.

All these things, Jesus says, have the purpose that we might have, not just joy, but his joy.

D .A. Carson says this. He says, human joy in a fallen world will be at best, ephemeral, shallow, and incomplete.

So what is peculiar or unique about the joy of Jesus? What is it that he's giving us that we can't get anywhere else?

Well, if we think about Hebrews 12, two, we think that it's a heavenly minded joy, right?

It's focus isn't on this life. It's on what's to come. Listen to Hebrews 12, two, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfect of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

In other words, he considered everything that he went through. I think we can put it this way, a momentary affliction, right?

Even as Peter talks about momentary afflictions in chapter one of first Peter, this is a momentary affliction for Jesus, but his eyes weren't on that.

They weren't focused on that. They were focused on the eternal joy. Jesus was satisfied to suffer because many were accounted righteous on account of his sacrifice.

And like his piece that was promised in John 14, 27, his joy is never ending.

Well, how's that possible? Because once we understand this, that we are his and we always will be forever and ever and ever, that's joy.

We shall see him. We shall be like him and we shall meet him face to face.

These things are all from the Bible and we know them to be true. And when we consider our sins, when we consider what we deserve, when we consider our guiltiness before God, and then we think in spite of all that, in spite of everything that I've done,

I get heaven. I get to be with Jesus. I get to be where there's no sin, no death, no disease forever and ever and ever.

How does that not give you joy? Again, this was a difficult, angst filled evening for the disciples.

Jesus wants to encourage them and he does so by promising them his joy and look again at verse 11 and that your joy might be or may be full.

Jesus is going to speak again about joy in the next two chapters. One writer says that Jesus will not be satisfied.

In other words, he's not going to stop talking to them about joy until their joy is filled to the brim.

If you know, as if it's a cup and he's just going to fill it all the way up to the edge. But the joy here is based on obedience is based on following him.

Now, does that sound dreary? If you just think, well, you know, how can obedience be joy? How can doing the right thing be joy?

James Montgomery voice says this. He says his commands following his commands actually lead in precisely the opposite direction from being grievous.

They lead to the fullness of that joy that is of God and it is rightly listed as the second virtue in the list of the spirit's fruit in Galatians chapter five.

If Jesus obedience brought him joy, why would you obeying him not bring you joy?

Let's put it another way. Well, what does sin bring us for believers?

It brings sorrow regrets. It causes others pain.

The world says that sin brings happiness, joy, fulfillment, freedom.

But the children of God cannot experience those things while rebelling against the master who bought them.

Whatever fleeting thrill may be found in the night of sin will surely result in tears of sorrow in the morning.

Believers experience the joy of Jesus by turning from sin and obeying him. It was asked this morning in Sunday school is anxiety a sin?

The answer is absolutely. What was Jesus? What did he say in John chapter 14 verse one?

He says, let not your hearts be troubled. He's talking to the disciples. He doesn't want them, their hearts to be troubled.

Why? Because that's sin and they're actually in sin at this point. Let's turn for a moment to just first Peter chapter one.

And when Peter who's here and listening to all this, he talks about trials and difficulties.

He reminds these Christians who are going to be persecuted of the things that are theirs.

You know what God has done, how he's caused them to be born again and how he's granted them an inheritance that's undefiled, waiting for them in heaven.

But look at verse six says in this, you rejoice, right?

In, in this future grace that, that you have, and this should be your focus in this.

You rejoice though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved with various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is, though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

And this is it. Even if things are difficult here, we have a joy that cannot be taken away from us because our joy, our contentment, our satisfaction is not found in our circumstances here on earth, but understanding what lies ahead of us.

What God has promised to promise to us. Charles Spurgeon talking about the

Savior's love for us said this, he died amid circumstances of pain and shame and desertion, which made that death peculiarly bitter.

The death of the cross is to us the highest proof of our Savior's infinite love for us.

He must die the death of a felon between two thieves, utterly friendless, the object of general ridicule, and this he must do bearing our sins in his own body.

All this makes us say, behold how he loved us.

Oh, beloved, can we doubt Christ's love since he laid down his life for us to know

Jesus, to love him, to obey him, is to know joy.

Let's pray. Our father in heaven,

Lord, we are weak and frail. We are forgetful. We are prone to wander and to be moved by the latest circumstance that comes into our life or the latest trend that we hear about.

Father, we should be focused on the steadfast and immovable love of you, of Christ, our

Savior, of the Holy Spirit. Before the foundation of the world, you not only planned for our salvation, which you then brought about in time, but you plan for every single circumstance of our lives, every situation that we would find ourselves in.

And you have promised us that all these things will pass away.

There are momentary afflictions. They are temporary trials. They are meant to exhibit one thing, the fact that we do belong to you, that our hope is fixed upon you, that we do have faith in you and a faith that you have generated in us by causing us to be born again.

Lord, for any here who don't know you, who've not experienced that joy, who've not experienced that regeneration.

Father, would you cause them to be born again? Even today, we pray in Jesus name.