What Kind Of Love Is This? - [John 10:17-21]

I want to invite you to open your Bibles to John chapter 10.

John chapter 10 as we continue studying the Gospel of John.

As we enter what I guess, I don't know if it's, I know it's right to call it the

Christmas season, but I don't know, the holiday season, whatever it is.

It's good to just reflect on the universal love and

renown that the Lord Jesus Christ enjoys not.

I want to read you a little quote here from Richard Dawkins from his book,

The God Delusion.

Listen to this as we enter into a study of the Gospels, which are

historical records.

He says this, he says, nobody knows who the four evangelists were.

He's talking about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but they almost certainly never met Jesus personally.

Much of what they wrote was in no sense an attempt at history, but was simply

rehashed from the Old Testament because the Gospel makers were devoutly convinced

that the life of Jesus must fulfill Old Testament prophecies.

Although Jesus probably existed, listen to this, reputable

Bible scholars do not in general regard the New Testament, and obviously

not the Old Testament, as a reliable record of what actually happened in history.

And I shall not consider the Bible as, or further, as evidence of any kind of deity.

Well then that closes it.

It's done.

If Dawkins says it's not evidence, then, anyway.

He finishes up with this, he says, the only difference between the Da Vinci Code and the Gospels is that the

Gospels are ancient fiction, while the Da Vinci Code is modern

fiction.

Now this concept of fiction was kind of made sport of by a

Christian writer on the internet, and I enjoyed it so much that I'm going to share a bit of it with you before we go into our

passage this morning.

This Christian writer posited, he said, well based on this, if it's some kind of conspiracy, Dawkins says,

and these Gospel writers didn't actually know Jesus, etc., etc.,

so he makes up this conversation about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and

John getting together and conspiring to invent Christianity after the death

of Jesus, and they even go so far in this conversation to steal the body of Jesus

and lie about him being resurrected.

After they decide on a rough outline of what each of them is going to write, the imagined conversation ends like

this.

Luke says, guys, it's going to take a while to put these documents together, these Gospels.

We need to get communities of people worshiping Jesus in the meantime so that when our books come out, they'll get a

good reception.

Mark said, hey, there's a guy I know named Saul.

He could help with that.

Luke says, Saul the Pharisee.

I can't imagine him getting involved with this kind of thing.

Mark says, trust me, he's our man.

I see him leaving behind everything he's been trained to do and planning congregations of Jesus worshipers

throughout the Roman Empire, whatever it costs him personally, beading, shipwrecks, all that kind of stuff.

Matthew says, awesome, but Luke, can you just remind me what's the point of all this?

I mean, what exactly do we get out of all this?

Luke says, come on, Matt, it'll be so much fun.

We'll watch people brutally martyred and we'll know that they've been deceived by our dishonest fiction.

What's not to like about that?

John says, I agree with Luke.

This is definitely worth years of effort on our part.

Count me in.

And Mark says, me too.

Matthew says, I'll do it if my name comes first in all the promotional material.

And Luke says, deal done.

Let's get to work.

Now that is absurd, right?

But that's basically the hypothesis that this brilliant man, Richard Dawkins, wants to put forth.

That these people, these ancient people,

were so smart, because we can't accuse them anymore of being dumb because the Bible does cohere,

but they were so smart that they decided to fool countless number of people.

For what purpose?

It's not really clear.

But Dawkins hates Jesus.

He hates God and he hates the idea of God.

And he hates it so much that he'll spout absurd theories.

Again, we're in John chapter 10 verses 17 -21.

But I just want to say this before we even begin, and you'll see this flesh out.

No one is neutral when it comes to Jesus.

No one is.

They might feign neutrality, but if you don't love him, the Bible says you are his enemy.

Let's look at John chapter 10 verses 17 -21.

The Lord Jesus speaking.

He says, for this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my

life that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.

This charge I have received from my Father.

There was a division, or there was again a division among the Jews because of these words.

Many of them said, he has a demon and is insane.

Why listen to him?

Others said, these are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon.

Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?

Just to briefly review where we are.

Jesus healed this man who had been born blind at the beginning of chapter 9.

Remember, the disciples wanted to know whose fault it was that he had been born blind.

To their way of thinking, there had to be somebody who caused this man to have this

miserable life of basically begging for his existence.

Jesus heals him and there is a lot that goes on after that and I don't want to recap all of that.

But just to say this, that right where we are right now, what immediately precedes that

is the blind man acknowledging Jesus and worshiping him

and then Jesus saying some things after that that are heard by Pharisees

and some other people who are standing nearby.

It is unlikely that they saw the man worshiping Jesus but they do hear Jesus address him afterwards.

Those are the words that this whole

section of scripture is about and then the response to that.

We talked last week about how the shepherding comparisons in John

10 make for an easy transition from reading Psalm 23 to presenting the

gospel to someone.

In fact, someone encouraged me this week by telling me that they had actually done this twice this week.

And I thought, that's great.

What could be more practical than coming to church and implementing what you learn?

I thought that was great.

But this morning we are going to look at the determination of the triune God, that is to say, Father,

Son and Holy Spirit to redeem his people by the willing sacrifice

of Jesus Christ.

And then we are going to see the response of the unbelieving Jews listening to the Lord.

Now I've identified each section of this morning's passage by giving an answer to this question,

what kind of love is this?

What kind of love is this?

And the first answer to what kind of love is this is, it's Trinitarian love.

Trinitarian love.

Now that's not a common phrase but let's look at John 17.

This is the love of the Trinity.

For this reason the Father loves me, Jesus says.

Why?

Because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

Now if you just read that you might think that Jesus somehow earns

the Father's love.

That maybe previously he had not loved Jesus but now that he sees that

Jesus is willing to lay down his life or when he does actually lay down his life that that is going to

cause the Father to love the Son.

But that is not the case.

It's more than just the willingness of Jesus to die for his sheep.

It is Jesus' eternal submission to the Father.

Jesus submits out of love for the Father and the Father loves the Son.

And he in fact sends the Holy Spirit to attend to him throughout his ministry.

He protects him from harm even as we think about how they tried to, the Pharisees and the Jews tried to

seize him on the Temple Mount.

But they couldn't.

He escaped.

Why was that?

Because the Father protected him.

He was not going to be put to death until the appointed time.

Well let's just move on here.

Just a few of the verses indicating that the Father sent Jesus.

We know this but just to remind us.

John 5 .37, And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me, his voice you

have never heard, his form you have never seen.

John 6 .44, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

John 6 .57, As the living Father sent me.

John 20 .21, As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.

Over and over again.

I couldn't even quote all the verses that Jesus talks about the Father sending him because

there are so many of them.

This is the nature of the Trinity.

The Father sends.

In fact I'm not going to go into this in any great detail but the Father sends the Son and who sends the Spirit.

Both the Father and the Son send the Spirit.

There is a unique relationship between the Trinity.

Now did Jesus have anything to prove to the Father?

No.

Turn for a moment to John chapter 17.

And really when we're talking about the Trinity there are a number of passages we can go to but John 17 really

pulls back the curtain so to speak more than just about any passage in all of Scripture.

We see here really the determination of the Trinity to execute

the covenant of redemption.

That is to say to redeem a people for the glory of God.

Look at John 17 and starting in verse 1.

When Jesus had spoken these words he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said,

Father the hour has come.

Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.

Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to

all whom you have given him.

It's important.

Let me read that part again.

To give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

Verse 3 and this is eternal life.

That they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have

sent.

I glorified you on earth having accomplished the work you gave me to do.

And now Father glorify me in your own presence.

And listen.

With the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

Jesus does all this and he doesn't gain approval.

He doesn't gain love.

He doesn't gain more glory for himself.

He is restored to his rightful glory.

He is restored to his rightful place.

He steps down into our world sacrificially, humbly,

obediently even to death on a cross.

But he does this out of love for the Father.

Go back to John 10.

And as I was saying, John

provides a few glimpses behind the curtain so we can see a little bit of

the inner workings of the Trinity.

What it's like between the Father, Son and Spirit even from time immemorial

before time began.

Listen to what theologian Wayne Grudem says.

He says in the work of redemption there are distinct functions.

God the Father planned redemption and sent his Son into the world.

The Son obeyed the Father and accomplished redemption for us.

God the Father did not come and die for our sins.

Nor did God the Holy Spirit.

That was the particular work of the Son.

Then after Jesus ascended back into heaven, the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father and

the Son to apply redemption to us.

This is what's commonly referred to as the covenant of redemption.

That is to say the work of Father, Son and Spirit to choose a people, save a people and

seal a people for his own glory.

And even as we think about the Trinity and even as we think of this passage,

we see just why some of the terminology is used here.

Why is God the Father called the Father?

Well think about what we see in scripture about the roles of

the members of a family.

When we think about that we think well Son, the Son, Jesus came to do the Father's will.

He did and said everything the Father wanted him to do or say.

Then compare that to Ephesians chapter 6.

Children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right.

Honor your father and mother.

This is the first commandment with a promise.

We just think Jesus is the perfect Son.

Did he not honor his Father in everything?

Yes.

Did he not obey him in everything?

Yes.

And what of the Father?

Did he not lead the Son?

Did he not tell him what to do?

Did he not give him work to do?

This is what fathers are to do.

They are to lead.

If you don't lead, if you're a father, just practically speaking, and you don't lead your children, what are they going to do?

They're going to wander about aimlessly as many do.

Now I've mostly been talking only about the first half of this verse.

Let's look at the second half of verse 17.

Because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

And if you look right in the middle of that clause there, right in the middle of that phrase, the word that,

it really should be so that.

And I prefer so that because the word is hynna.

In the Greek it's hynna.

It's a hynna clause.

And it indicates purpose.

It's there to show us what the actual purpose of Jesus laying down his life.

The very reason he's laying down his life is what?

So that he can take it up again.

So that he can raise himself from the grave.

It's kind of an odd thing.

Listen, the reason I'm dying is so that I can be resurrected.

Now let's just address, well, first of all, what's the importance of resurrection really

isn't contained here.

But if we just think about it, we thought about 1 Corinthians chapter

15.

Why is the resurrection so important?

Because if Jesus is still in that grave, then what?

We have no hope.

We have no hope whatsoever.

So he lays down his life so that we can, it's easy for us to draw this inference out, so that we'll have hope.

So that he can raise himself up and give us the hope, the sure hope of eternal life.

But some might say here, well wait a second, the father raised the son from the grave.

Well, and we're getting a little bit of a lesson on the Trinity this morning.

And I really shouldn't apologize for that, but it's just reality of where we are.

Who raised Jesus from the grave?

Well, if you recall back in John 2, 19, Jesus said what?

Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up.

He was talking metaphorically about his own body.

Kill me and I will raise it up in three days.

Galatians 1 chapter or verse 1, Paul wrote this,

an apostle not from man nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the father who

raised him from the dead.

God the father raised him from the dead.

Paul also wrote in Romans chapter 8 verse 11, if the spirit of him who

raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also

give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

Certainly we could draw from that the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead.

So in some way, father, son, and spirit are all involved in the raising of Jesus

from the grave.

We could look at the creation of the world and we would see that the father, son, and

spirit were all involved in that.

What does this all mean?

Well, it's this.

When we think of God, we should think of him this way, as father, son, and spirit, but we should also think of him

as near to us in the sense that the spirit of God indwells us, near to us in the sense that

Jesus Christ loved us, came here, and died for us, near to us in the sense that the father hears our

prayers and answers them, but incredibly complex, distant from us in the

sense that it's beyond our ability to grasp three persons and one God.

We will spend eternity marveling and learning

about the depth and the complexity of the Trinity.

So our first answer to what kind of love is this is Trinitarian love.

Our second answer to what kind of love is this is intentional love.

It's intentional.

There are three dimensions to this.

First of all, it is voluntary.

Look what Jesus says in verse 18, no one, meaning no person, takes it from me,

but I lay it down of my own accord, his life.

Nobody takes it from him.

We should be very clear about this.

Jesus is not a victim.

No matter what the appearance was, no matter how helpless he looked up on that cross,

he was not helpless.

Turn for just a moment to Matthew chapter 27.

Many places we could go to look at this, the scorn with which our Lord Jesus Christ was treated.

Matthew 27 verses 39 to 42, and those who passed by,

and those who were in the cross, and those who passed by.

I mean, just think about Jesus on the cross after he's been beaten to a pulp, hanging on the cross

and really, humanly speaking, fighting for his life.

And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying,

you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days.

See, they still didn't understand that.

Save yourself.

If you are the son of God, come down from the cross.

So also the chief priests with the scribes and elders, all the religious leaders,

mocked him saying, he saved others.

He cannot save himself.

He is the king of Israel.

Let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in him.

When they said he saved others, what did they mean?

They didn't mean spiritually, they meant physically.

They knew of the miracles he had performed.

Did they believe in him then?

No.

But if he comes down from the cross we'll believe in him.

No, but they might run, right?

I think they might be concerned for their own safety.

Okay, fun and games are over, let's run.

Their message is, if you're so powerful, save yourself.

We've already seen that wasn't his purpose.

It wasn't about self -preservation.

He died, why?

So that he could raise himself.

Jesus is on a mission.

He has come to save his sheep and he will absolutely accomplish it.

But it will be at the appointed time and on his terms.

It is entirely voluntary.

Secondly, it's also authorized.

It's authorized.

I have, verse 18, I have authority to lay it down and I have authority

to take it up again.

It's authorized.

What mere mortal, what mere human being could make such a claim?

Who could say that I've been authorized to lay down my life and I've been

authorized to take it back up again?

Well, we hear this kind of thing about the first part, right?

There's a movement afoot.

I think this has become one of the big social issues of our day, this idea of

euthanasia.

I have the right to end my own life.

Well, that's not what he's saying.

He's not going to put himself out of his misery.

In fact, Jesus puts himself into misery for the benefit of the sheep.

That word authority is intriguing because it implies a capacity that only God has.

There's a not so subtle claim to deity here.

It would not be wrong to think of it this way.

There is no power on earth, visible or invisible, that can stop me from

doing what I aim to do.

That's what he's saying.

He is the giver of life and he has the power and right to end his own life.

And this is entirely consistent with the emphasis that John places on the deity of

Jesus Christ.

He's fully God.

Now, if we look at Jesus' death from a human perspective, what happened?

The Jews basically turned Jesus over to the Romans and the Romans crucified him.

Well, that's all historically accurate, but it's also true that Jesus

sacrificed his life in keeping with the foreordained plan and

knowledge of the Father.

And it was all in keeping with the eternal plan of the Trinity to redeem the flock of God.

So it was authorized.

It was intentionally authorized.

And third, it was commanded.

Look at verse 18, the end of it.

This charge I have received from my Father.

And again, we're seeing really the operations if you will, of the Trinity, Father and Son.

The Father charges and the word really means orders, commands.

This is kind of like, to be a little crass, this is Son, this is what I want you to do.

Yes, Dad.

That's the picture.

Yes, Father, I will do that.

And when we read that kind of language, we think, well, the Son, Jesus must be less than the Father, but that's not true.

We tend to think that way.

Well, why would we think that way?

Because when we think of submission, when we think of obedience, when we think about

taking an order from someone else, we think that person that takes the order

has to be less substantive than the one who gives it.

There's less authority there.

There's less meaning.

There's less power.

But this is the voluntary submission of Jesus Christ.

He's not less than the Father, but his function as we've been saying is different.

The ultimate purpose is the same, to save sinners from their sins for the glory

of God.

However, each member of the Trinity has a different role and

that's what we see here.

Now, what kind of God would do this?

What kind of Father would command his Son to give up his life?

And this is the kind of thing that we hear from unbelievers, right?

This is cosmic child abuse, to

force the Son, to order the Son to do this kind of thing.

This is not something we would expect to, or that's the kind of charge we would expect to hear

from an unbeliever.

Now, listen to this quote and I want you to mentally guess, I'm not going to take a showing of hands, but mentally guess

who might have said this.

It is not an unworthy concept of God

to imagine, or he's, I'm sorry, is it not, so this is a question, is it not an unworthy

concept of God to imagine for oneself a God who demands the

slaughter of his Son to pacify his wrath?

Is it not so?

Such a concept of God has nothing to do with the idea of God to be found in the New Testament and it

is unworthy, it is an unworthy concept of God.

The person who wrote that was Pope Benedict,

the Pope before the current Pope.

Before he was the Pope, he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,

the most influential theologian in all the Roman Catholic Church.

So this is not an atheist we're talking about.

And yet he says this concept has nothing to do with the idea of God to be found in the New

Testament.

I think it's right here in John chapter 10.

And it's also in Romans chapter 3, if you want to turn there for a moment.

Romans chapter 3 verses 23 to 25.

Very

familiar verses.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace

as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God

put forward as a propitiation by his blood, by his death to be received by

faith.

This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former

sins.

This is all about the wrath of God and satisfying the wrath of God and

sacrificing Jesus Christ to satisfy the wrath of God.

With all due respect to the man who was responsible for Roman Catholic theology for many, many years before he

became Pope, he doesn't understand the Bible.

He doesn't understand the Gospel.

He doesn't understand how badly we need the Son of God to die on our behalf.

Now let's go back to John chapter 10.

Jesus doesn't explicitly mention the wrath of God here, but if we think about the

shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, that he lays down his life at all that he may take up again.

Well why is he laying it down?

He's sacrificing himself for the sheep because there's a price that they cannot

pay and he can pay.

So we've seen an answer to the question, what kind of love is this?

We've seen Trinitarian love.

We've seen intentional love.

And finally, now this is really kind of odd so I'll have to explain it a little bit.

We see demonic love and I don't mean this in any kind of good way.

This is the love of demons.

This is demonic deception.

This is the doctrine of demons.

These are lies that these people believe.

The Jews, and here you know usually when we see John refer to the Jews, he's talking about the Jewish leadership.

But here it means that there's a mixture of lay people and leaders who are listening to Jesus after he's

interacted with the man formerly blind and they

reject his teaching.

Verse 19, they reject it but they want to argue about it.

There was again a division among the Jews because of these words.

It's just like when Jesus was teaching during the festival of booze and there was a disagreement

over who he was and how seriously they should take him.

And here are the two camps.

One is kind of what I call the anti -theist.

They're against God.

Many of them said he has a demon and is insane.

Why listen to him?

They weren't really atheists.

But when we talk about modern day atheists, isn't this what they say about Christianity?

That's insane.

How could anybody believe that?

You seem like a perfectly rational fellow, Steve.

What happened?

You know, you became a Christian and that's just dumb.

That's insane.

The idea of a man dying with a purpose of coming back to life,

that's incredible.

That's foolishness.

That's moronic.

That's 1 Corinthians 1 language.

Apart from the Holy Spirit, no one would believe that.

They think that Jesus is talking nonsense, gibberish, foolishness.

To them, you might as well be listening to the town drunk, the town clown, the town fool.

And is there a more base insult that can be leveled against the Son of God than to accuse him of being demon possessed?

Now before you ask me, this is not the unforgivable sin because they hadn't actually

seen a miracle and then attributed it to the power of demons.

But this is pretty bad.

The second group, I just call them the agnostics, verse 21.

Others said, these are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon.

Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?

They have a different idea.

They don't think, they don't really believe Jesus.

But they do know this.

They know that he healed the man born blind.

And they know that no demon can do that.

And in fact, they should know that no demon would do that, even if they had the power.

So the idea that he's somehow demon possessed, that doesn't make any sense to them.

But they sort of understated.

They really missed the point.

It's not enough to say that this guy can't possibly be controlled by a demon.

The best they can muster is he's not under control of Satan or his minions.

That's the best they can do.

Again, this goes to the folly of thinking that more evidence will somehow move the unbeliever from the kingdom

of darkness and into the kingdom of light.

Only God can do that.

Now these people knew what Jesus had done.

And if you recall when it occurred, they said, you know, who's ever heard of such a thing?

And yet they just offer this kind of feeble response.

The correct response is what?

It's what the man formerly blind did.

He worshiped Jesus.

Now Jesus began this chapter with the shepherding analogies.

And by the end of the pericope, this section of scripture, I just like to say pericope, sorry.

He has explained some new aspects of his relationship with

the Father.

Kind of the inner workings, as I've said, of the Trinity.

All of this to stress the contrast between Jesus and the Pharisees.

They were concerned only with themselves, not with the care of the sheep, not with the glory of

God.

They didn't have this special relationship with the Father that he did.

All these claims that he's making irritate them no end.

They get madder and madder as time goes on.

Jesus cares for the sheep.

He obeys the Father and is loved by the Father.

He alone has the capacity and the eternal responsibility, the

eternal charge, as it were.

The order to redeem the people of God's own choosing.

Believers from every tribe, kindred, and tongue.

Remember when he says he has sheep that are not of this fold?

That's what he's talking about.

People from all over the world.

Let me just conclude by saying this, the Gospels are not fiction.

They were not cooked up by a few conspirators who dreamed of fooling thousands, millions,

billions over centuries.

In fact, the word of God, the Gospel is what?

It is the power of God unto salvation.

Last night, while many of you were wisely asleep, I was

contacted by somebody, not like in a spiritual contact,

via Facebook Messenger.

Somebody I don't even really know.

I have hundreds of friends that I've never met on Facebook.

He said, please pray for me.

He says, my wife just brought up divorce.

He goes, too many details to go into.

I'm like, okay.

I'm not going to promise you that I'm going to pray for you unless I investigate things a little bit and know what I'm praying for.

So, we interacted a little bit and I asked him where he was going to church.

I haven't been to church in more than a year.

I talked about how his wife was

pretty much exasperated with him and everything.

Some of the areas of sin in his life.

You know what I said?

I said, you know what, don't worry about it.

Just believe in yourself and everything will be okay.

Reach down, grab your bootstraps and pull yourself up, man.

Get a grip on reality.

I told him that if he believed in Jesus Christ, that Jesus died for

all of his sins.

Not just the ones he committed before he started feeling guilty.

Not just the ones he committed before he stopped going to church.

He told me, he said, you know, I said, where are you going to church?

He said, not, you know, not going.

And I said, you know, why?

Well, my wife didn't particularly like that church.

You know, she didn't feel connected.

And it went on and on a little bit.

And he said, you know, I'm afraid to go back to that church.

And I just thought, you know what, there are probably people who feel that way.

I know my dad used to say, if he went to a church, the roof would cave in.

And maybe you're in a similar state this morning.

Maybe you think that you're not worthy of salvation.

Well, I'm going to tell you what I told that man last night.

You're not.

You deserve hell just like I do.

You, me, this man, are not worthy of salvation.

We're not worthy of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God doesn't love us because of some inherent goodness in us.

He loves us because we are in Christ.

He loves us because He loves the Son.

I told him, I said, Jesus came to save sinners of whom I am

the foremost.

He came to redeem the irredeemable.

He came to seek and save the lost, fully God and fully

man, obedient to the Father at all times, procuring the righteousness we

need to enter heaven, spotless, sinless,

Lamb of God, voluntarily dying, voluntarily laying down His life so that He could rise

on the third day.

That's the gospel.

And it's the power of God unto salvation and it is the power of God in our lives for

believers.

If you're feeling down, if you're feeling depressed, you need something.

You need the gospel.

You need to believe it.

You say, I do believe it.

Well, you don't believe it enough.

I even said this week, I said, I believe, help my unbelief.

Right?

Lord, we believe, help our unbelief.

That's the Spirit.

Why is it that we still sin?

Because we still have doubt.

If we believed God fully, if we kept Jesus Christ on the front of our minds,

if the first thought we had in the morning and the first thought we had all day long was the gospel,

that I am saved by grace, that I live a life of joyous obedience to my Lord and Savior.

If we thought that way all day long, temptation would come along and what would happen?

It would bounce off, but we don't think that way all day long.

And when we don't, when we entertain sin, we sin.

When we entertain temptation, we fall.

Brothers and sisters, we need Jesus Christ not when we're at our

best.

We need Him when we're at our worst.

Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, we are reminded again of the great love which you have

placed on those who are in Christ Jesus.

And again, it's because of His work, because you love Him and we are the

beneficiaries of that.

In us dwells no good thing.

Father, we have no merit, nothing to commend us.

We have nothing to commend us.

No means by which we could earn your favor and we don't need to.

Everything we need, all the righteousness, all the favor, all

the blessing is ours by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Father, would you shield us from depression, shield us from

sin, shield us from all these things.

Give us a greater love for you.

Let our soul focus be on this truth, that you are our

great God.

We are great sinners and great is thy faithfulness to forgive us.

What a great and wonderful God you are, Lord, and we just give you all the praise in Jesus' name.