All Things For Good Chap. 6 pt. 5

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All righty, so we're still in chapter six of Thomas Watson's book. We're making our way along slowly but surely.

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And this is part five of chapter six, an exhortation to love God. So the last few weeks, we've been going through the motivation to love

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God. He offers 20, and then there'll be some other things to finish off the chapter, but we're up to number 12, so I'll read it and then we can discuss.

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The relation we stand in, let me try that again, the relation we stand in to God calls for love.

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There is near affinity. Your maker is your husband. And shall a wife not love her husband?

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He is full of tenderness. His spouse is to him as the apple of his eye. He rejoices over her as the bridegroom over his bride.

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He loves the believer as he loves Christ. The same love for quality, though not equally.

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Either we must love God or we give ground of suspicion that we are not yet united to him.

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So as a motivation to love God, what is he saying here? What's our motivation to love

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God? This is not a trick question.

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Right there. Mike. The relationship that we have with him, right?

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We are the bride of Christ, right? We call God Father. That nearness of relation, you know, and here, obviously, you know, sometimes we can think of our own human relationships that are flawed, right?

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Says shall a wife not love her husband? But here is the perfect husband. He's full of tenderness, right?

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His spouse is to him as the apple of his eye. He rejoices over her. And so we have these scriptural examples from Isaiah, from John, you know, and you can think of Song of Solomon as well, all those references there.

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His love for us, the relationship that we have with him, because of him, should motivate us to love.

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So I guess the question is, how much do we dwell on that? How much do we dwell on our relationship with God?

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The relationship he has brought us into? Because remember, we were enemies before Christ, right?

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We love him because he first loved us. But how often do we dwell on this? All right, no one wants to say,

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I never dwell on it. Okay. I know one time, one time, one time of dwelling.

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That's how Freudian slip there. Well, when we sin, when we fall short, if we really care about that, that troubles us, the flip side of that is because of our love for God.

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And I know, this is what I was trying to say before, I know when I fall short, immediately that comes to mind, you know, that this,

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I've just, I've broken my agreement with God, so to say, you know,

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I've fallen short. You know, this is not good. Not because of fear, but because, you know, because of the relationship.

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And you know, when you do sin, you know that that does put a cloud of it over that relationship in some ways.

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I feel the guilt of letting someone you love down, right? You know, when we really love someone, and our heart is overflowing with that love, to disappoint them breaks our own heart as well.

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It causes us deep regret. And so yeah, that's a good way of explaining it and putting it.

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To dwell on this sometimes, I think sometimes, I don't know if it's just the state of the church today,

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I don't know if it's the busyness of life, I wonder if we dwell on this enough.

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But what can help us to remind us of our relationship with God, that we would be motivated to love him more?

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What sort of things can we do to stir that up? Again, the means of grace, that's what stirs it up.

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I mean, whether it be reading scripture or praying or fellowshipping, getting yourself away from the mundane, and that private time perhaps, not just the corporate time, the private time, but you made a comment about worship, and I think all too often, and I know

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I fall into this trap, we go to worship and our mindset isn't there.

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Maybe we're thinking, oh, I've got things to do later, and that becomes a big hindrance in our loving

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God through worship, obviously. And there's other times where, when you're in the right mindset for worship, you're more thrilled, and that builds up even more where you stay in your relationship with God and how you feel, not feel in the sense of ooey -gooey feeling, but that unity, if you will, becomes more intense.

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Yeah, it's a both -end. You know, we've said time and again, love is not merely feelings, feelings especially with us come and go, but love is also obedience and looking to do those things that manifest that we do have love all along the prophets, right?

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But yeah, exactly. Prayer, being in the Word, taking time intentionally to be thinking on these things.

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So you mentioned the worship, you know, the worship service obviously is a key time to just be totally fixated on the

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Lord and that all the distractions and cares of the world kind of filter out of your mind for a bit as you focus on Him.

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But spending time in devotion, reading and praying, just dwelling on Him throughout the day, being intentional about it, will motivate you to love, will, especially to this point, specifically reminding us of our relationship with God, will help us to love

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Him. Very good. Number 13. Love to God is the most abiding grace.

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This will stay with us when other graces take their farewell. In heaven we shall need no repentance, because we shall have no sin.

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In heaven we shall not need patience, because there will be no affliction. In heaven we shall need no faith, because faith looks at unseen things.

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Then we shall see God face to face, and where there is vision, there is no need of faith.

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But when the other graces are out of date, love continues. And in this sense, the Apostle says that love is greater than faith or hope, because it abides the longest.

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Love will last forever. Faith is the staff by which we walk in this life. We walk by faith.

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But we shall leave this staff at heaven's door, and only love shall enter. Thus love carries away the crown from all the other graces.

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Love is the most long -lived grace. It is a blossom of eternity. How should we strive to excel in this grace, which alone shall live with us in heaven, and shall accompany us to the marriage supper of the

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Lamb? These are wonderful things to be meditating on, huh?

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So what's the motivation here? This is, like, practically giving you, like, busy work.

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It's a ditto, fill in the blank. And it's right there in front of you. It's an open book test. What is the, um, what is the motivation here?

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I don't want to be the only one speaking. Someone's got to. Otherwise, it's just me. My motivation would be knowing that I will see

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Him face to face. But there's a lot of other things being said there. You know, the things that we suffer here on earth, the difficulties we face, but even sometimes that challenge of faith is not going to be necessary anymore.

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It's like all those burdens are going to be lifted. And even those, as you seek to love

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Him in spite of those things, now that's not going to be a concern.

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You know, so that's, like, wow to me. Ralph. God is love.

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You know, you can say, Lord, all the graces fall away. Love lasts forever.

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Fill in the blank. There you go. You got it. Spot on. Love is the most abiding grace.

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It lasts forever. Forever. Right? Faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

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One day we won't need faith. We won't need hope. As he mentioned in the previous part of the paragraph, we won't need repentance.

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We won't need patience. All these things, all these graces that we have that have been given by God to assist us through this life will one day no longer be necessary.

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But love will always be there. Now, it doesn't obviously downplay the importance of excelling in all those other graces.

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We need to excel in repentance and patience and faith. But it's simply another reminder of the importance of loving

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God now. You know, it's been said, most people that you talk to, most people would say they want to go to heaven.

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You know, given the choices especially, right? Out of the two, yeah, they would want to go to heaven.

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But most seem not to realize what heaven is. Heaven is being in the presence of God.

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Heaven is being with Christ eternally. Heaven is being with the rest of the body. You know, the same people they're trying to avoid now in this life, right?

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People who have no interest in the church, they have no interest in God, in spiritual things, in knowing the

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Word, in being in prayer. If they're avoiding it now, can they really say they love

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Him? Can they really say they want heaven? They're thinking more of heaven as a vacation spot.

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You know, a paradise, not understanding the weight of it. Other questions or comments about that before we move on?

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Take that as a no. All right, number 14. Love to God will never let sin thrive in the heart.

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Some plants will not thrive when they are near together. The love of God withers sin. Though the old man lives, yet as a sick man, it is weak.

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The flower of love kills the weed of sin. Though sin does not die totally, yet it dies daily.

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How should we labor for that grace, which is the only corrosive to destroy sin?

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Hmm, how does that motivate us to love God? What's the benefit of loving

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God? Knowing sin. Not having to deal with the consequences.

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Not having to deal with the consequences of sin. We'll also, yeah? Yeah, that's what we talked about before, about sin.

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Go ahead. So, every time we sin, do we get justice every time we sin?

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Like, like, sorry. It's okay. Like, every time we sin, is it going to come back to like...

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I don't really think I know how to answer this question. I think I know what you're saying.

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So, I'll try to verbalize it. You can tell me if it sounds like that. You know, like the world will say, karma, right?

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If you do something, it comes back to you, right? Now, obviously, we don't believe in karma.

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That's, you know, a pagan thing. But there is the understanding of justice.

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You were starting to say, do we get justice every time we sin? And what is justice but judgment, right?

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Everything is paid for. The Lord says that he'll repay each one according to their works, according to their deeds.

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Every thoughtless word will be held accountable for. Now, for the believer, scripture also tells us that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

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Justice is received, but the Lord Jesus takes our sin upon the cross.

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He takes the full wrath of God. Everything that we really deserve with justice, every sin we've ever done, he's taken it upon the cross.

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So, in the one sense, we actually get mercy more than justice. That's not to say that there aren't consequences for our sins.

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When we sin, there are consequences to it. And it can vary. You know, sometimes it seems, you know, you read the

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Psalms and the psalmist is saying, you know, these people seem to get away with everything, you know. Where is the justice?

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But they understand. They go to the house of the Lord. They recognize their end. For those who aren't in Christ, condemnation awaits them.

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They might get away, humanly speaking, with things now, but eventually they'll have to stand before the

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Lord and be judged for everything. And there'll be no escaping justice at that point. So, for the believer, we take our comfort that Christ has taken our sin away.

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He's taken our judgment. He's taken away our very deserved condemnation.

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But yeah, there are still consequences for our sins at times. It'll vary what happens.

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Yeah, yeah, I mean, if you steal and you're a Christian, if you're truly a

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Christian, right, and you still sin, you steal. God is not going to send you to hell for that because you have trusted in Christ and he's taken away your sin.

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However, the police can still lock you up and put you in jail. So yeah, there's consequences.

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So the consequences for a believer are temporary, but the consequences for a non -believer are eternal.

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So we will suffer temporary consequences, but even God in his grace and mercy sometimes spares us from the consequences.

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I mean, we have to recognize even the consequences we get in this world are sometimes much less than what we actually deserve.

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So he's a gracious and merciful God. You know, turn to him and be saved.

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Yeah, I'm sure pretty much anyone here who's been a believer for any length of time could tell you how

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God has been merciful to them and their sins. Yes, there are times where they're paying the consequences of their sins, but nowhere near what they deserve.

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Of course, Paul says, shall we sin that grace may abound. Yeah, and that's sometimes the accusation against, for those who hold to the doctrines of grace and the perseverance of the saints, the fact that, you know, if God has saved you, he has saved you to the uttermost and you can't lose your salvation.

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They're like, oh, that's license to sin. At least you know that you're explaining it right.

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But that's not the truth at all. Paul condemns that kind of thinking.

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I think for a believer, in place of dire consequences for sinning, there's discipline, you know.

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Discipline is his love towards us. So if you undergo a discipline of some sort, whether it's through the church or, you know, one -on -one kind of somebody rebuking you, it's a good thing and it's a mercy you've got.

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And it should heal your repentance. Yeah, Hebrews 12 speaks about the chasing of the

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Lord, that he disciplines those who are his children, you know. We recognize him as Father, and even our human fathers, you know, disciplined us for a time as seen best to them.

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How much more so our Heavenly Father, who loves us perfectly. So we should not despise the chasing of the

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Lord. So, okay. That help answer the question?

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Yeah. Okay. And as to the rest of this part, love to God will never let sin thrive in the heart.

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The more we love God, the less we will love things that are opposed to God.

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You know, Jesus says you can't love both God and mammon. Money, wealth, you know.

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Money is a tool, but how many people make an idol out of it today, where money is what drives them.

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But if you have a real love for God, you can't love money or anything else that same way that would be sinful.

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And so we should be motivated to love God, that we might put to death our desire for sinful things.

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You know, our first priority, you know, and there's something down here later talking about it almost seems carnal.

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Like, you know, when we first get saved, we might realize we're under judgment. We don't want to go to hell and hear

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Christ has made a way. And so, yes, I'm happy to accept Christ. I'm happy to escape hell, you know.

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And eventually as we love, as we grow in our love for God, it will be more for who he is than for the gifts that he gives us, the benefits of even escaping the consequences of sin.

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But sometimes, you know, like small children who need to be motivated differently than logically thinking adults, you know, sometimes we need that, the carrot or the stick, as it were, right?

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Any other questions or comments about that? Oh, please. You know, I have a friend that says, when she's going through her major stuff, she goes, but doesn't

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God love me? And I go, it's because he loves me. He allows suffering in our lives so that we know, and he's faithful, he's going to bring us through for a reason.

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He just doesn't allow it. What kind of father would do that? That's how we grow. But it took like such a long time, and now that she's coming out of it, she's going through it, and she realized why he does love her.

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But it took a while. She's like, man, you suffer this alone? But you're really not alone. God's in you. Yeah. Right.

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You have the Spirit. And that's why you want to make use of the means of grace, including being in the body, bearing one of those burdens, having someone come alongside, weeping with those who weep.

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I mean, but Scripture tells us plainly, it's been granted to you, not only to believe, guess what? There's more.

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You get to suffer for his sake. That's been granted to you. You're welcome. Right?

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What a blessing it is. And that seems so hard in the middle of it. Don't say it like that to someone who's suffering, unless you're really friendly with them, and they know your sense of humor.

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Otherwise, they might punch you in the face. You got to know your audience, right? They will ask you about it.

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All right. I don't want to hear about people getting punched next week. That was bad advice.

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Okay. Number 15. Love to God is an excellent means for growth of grace.

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But grow in grace, 2 Peter 3, 18. Growth in grace is very pleasing to God.

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Christ accepts the reality of grace, but commends the maturity of grace. And what can more promote and augment grace and love to God?

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Love is like watering of the root, which makes the tree grow. Therefore, the apostle uses this expression in his prayer,

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May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God. He knew this grace of love would nourish all the graces.

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Okay. So how so? Hmm? This should actually get easier, because this is really kind of repetitive after a while.

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These are very similar in theory to what we're talking about here.

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It's just looking at it at every different angle. So how does it augment?

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How does it help us to... Love for God causes us to grow in grace.

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This is what we're told to. So we have the reality of grace that says Christ accepts the reality of grace.

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What does that mean? Did you come up with that grace on your own? No. It's a gift, right?

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It's a gift, right? You have the grace of God. It's a gift to you. Your salvation.

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Unmerited favor given to you, right? And so you can't earn that grace.

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You can't develop that grace as far as out of nothing. God gives you the grace, and yet we're told to grow in grace.

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And so that part, God tells us to do. Grow in grace, right?

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How do you grow in grace? Eventually you guys are going to remember this.

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It's the same answer. It's the same answer every time. Yes, I mean, we keep coming back to these are motives for why we should love

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God. How do we grow in our love for God? How do we get those embers really glowing and that fire really burning?

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We utilize the means of grace. We continue to commend ourselves to God's grace.

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Grace is... It comes from God. It's His unmerited favor. It's all the gifts that He gives us.

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And yet He calls us to be more like Him. We want to be intentional. Using those means of grace.

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Talks about growing in the grace and knowledge in 2 Peter there. Growing in the grace and knowledge of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So it's attached to the knowledge. It's not uninformed. It's just like love is not a feeling that we just decide,

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I love, I don't love. Scripture informs us of what love is. Scripture informs us what grace is.

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Scripture tells us these things. It's kind of like a campfire, if you will. You start with twigs.

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You blow on that little bit of an ember and those twigs start to enlighten.

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You gather some more wood people. They come, they get into that fire, they start to blaze.

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They're blazing, bring some others, and others, and others. Before you know it, you have a bonfire. And that's the light you don't want to hide under a bush.

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I was just getting concerned people would mix your metaphor. Add people to the fire! Kind of medieval.

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Scary! Is he talking about heretics? Is he talking about believers?

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Erica, go ahead. I just wanted to clarify. So at first I was a little confused by what it means to grow in grace.

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But then based upon how you're explaining it. So basically, God has given us many blessings.

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So he's giving us what we don't deserve. Everything that he's given us is what we don't deserve. And we're supposed to use that for his glory.

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Whether it be for other people. I mean, spiritual gifts are described as graces.

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I mean, grace comes from God. It's his righteousness.

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Everything that he's given to us. And we should be seeking to grow in it. So be intentional in the use of it.

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When we think of the spiritual gifts. You might have the gift of teaching.

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You might have the gift of mercy. You might have any number of gifts. That doesn't mean you're an expert right away.

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You have to grow and mature in that. And so you want to continue to do that.

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Using the means of grace. Using the word of God, the spirit. Applying it.

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And as you apply it, you will grow. You will continue to. Make sense? Any other questions or comments on that one?

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Flying through now. Number 16. The great benefit which will accrue to us.

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If we love God. No eye has seen nor ear has heard. And no mind has imagined.

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What God has prepared for those who love him. The eye has seen rare sights. The ear has heard sweet music.

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But eye has not seen. Nor ear heard. Nor can the heart of man imagine. What God has prepared for those who love him.

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Such glorious rewards are laid up. As Augustine says. Faith itself is not able to comprehend them.

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Comprehend them. God has promised a crown of life. To those who love him. This crown encircles within it.

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All blessedness. Riches and glory and delight. And it is a crown which is unfading.

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Thus God would draw us to him. By rewards. This is what I was referring to before.

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Sometimes it seems like. I'm supposed to love God for who he is. And yet he says.

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This is what he's going to do. For those who love him. And so there's both there.

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As we grow in our maturity. But to think about that. To be motivated by love.

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Especially when you think of who you were. Before Christ. You were enemies. Rebels.

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I forget who says it. The unbeliever has to climb up into God's lap.

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To be able to reach him. To try to slap him. Everything we have is from God. And yet how many people take what

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God gives them. The very breath from their lungs. To curse God. Right? And that's where we were.

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Before Christ. And now he says. Not only has he made us his.

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And saved us. We can't even imagine. How he is going to bless us in the future.

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The rewards that we'll have. With him forever. Is that a motivation to love?

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Is that just the. Again that unmerited grace. And favor. The kindness. It seems.

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Carl. And yet this is what scripture gives us. That was mentioned before.

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About the motivation for. A little child. Who sometimes needs.

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You can't reason with them. You can't explain to them. But a little swat. Helps them to connect certain ideas.

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And so we grow in motivation. Toddler versus teenager. Teenager versus adult. We grow. Just had a thought.

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It's kind of like a treasure hunt. There's a thrill of going on the treasure hunt.

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That's a reward. In and of itself. When you actually get the treasure. It's glorious.

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Yep. It motivates you to continue on. Right? Other questions or comments about that?

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Next slide. Love to God is armor. Against error.

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For lack of hearts full of love. Men have heads. Full of error.

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Unholy opinions are for a lack of. Holy affections. Why are men given up to strong delusions?

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Because they receive not. The love of truth. The more we love God. The more we hate those heterodox opinions.

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That would draw us off from God. Into libertinism. Not libertarianism.

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But libertine. Libertinism. What does that mean?

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That's a good question. Who knows what that means? It's an ism. What's that?

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Right. So hetero. Hetero is different, right?

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It's not orthodox. Heterodox is error. We hate those heterodox opinions.

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I actually had to look up the definition to make sure I had it right. Someone who is holding to libertinism.

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I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. It says a person, especially a man, who behaves without moral principles or a sense of responsibility, especially in sexual matters.

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Also, a person who rejects accepted opinions in matters of religion. A free thinker. Does that make sense?

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Yeah. What you see is there are people who are full of errors but confident that they're right.

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Right? Social media has made it possible for all of these people to share their opinions with more people than they could possibly imagine.

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Through Facebook and Twitter and all the others. And there's so much error out there.

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You hear people's opinions on other people. Things that they don't even know about.

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Current events. Philosophies of life. And there's so much error out there.

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Where does that error come from? Sin. Right. It comes from a lack of love of God, who is truth.

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Sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. God is truth. And to not love

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God is to not love truth. It's to be full of error. It's like they seem to not be able to help themselves.

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They couldn't reason their way out of a wet paper bag. As the old expression goes. Right? If you love

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God, you're gonna love truth. You're gonna know where the founding

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What's the foundation for truth? Is in the Lord. As he's revealed it in his word.

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That's where truth is. And you're gonna study to know what that truth is. You're not gonna wanna play fast and loose with the text.

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You're not gonna wanna just take that like some others have to twist it for their own enrichment.

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For their own reputation. How many books are written recently too.

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Trying to justify homosexuality. For one example. Taking the word of God and trying to twist it into all sorts of concortions to get it to say what they want it to say.

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Why are they really wrong? Are they stupid? Are they really unintelligent people who just, they just can't help themselves?

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They're blind. For their own Their own sin. It causes them to be blind to the truth.

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It causes them to be given up to strong delusions. Right? When we read through Proverbs and we hear about the fool.

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The fool is not a description of someone who is unintelligent. It's a moral judgment.

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The fool is the person who hates God. Who says there is no God. And so lack of love for God leads to all kinds of error.

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Does that make sense? You see it every day. We wanna be careful that we don't see it in ourselves.

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We wanna make sure that we're never trying to justify what we want. Because we don't love

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God as much as we love ourselves and our selfish desires. Steve? If I could read it

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Love to God is armor against the world. How many times do we see a commercial where you deserve this?

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This is a vacation that you deserve. You've earned the right to sin.

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Not the vacation to sin itself. I heard someone say it's my turn to be selfish.

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And I said, Lord help me never to think this way. And the more we love

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God, the more we hate those opinions. I'm not even gonna say the word. Those type of opinions.

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It's part of the sanctification I think that we identify these errors in the world.

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The world just keeps pumping it out. And we have to abide in Christ to stay safe.

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We're constantly at war with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Alex? Also, if we have love of God, we'll love the

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God that's revealed in the Bible. Instead of trying to make God in our image.

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Because that's the God in our sinful hearts that we love. He's the loving

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God who whatever delusions... Gives me whatever I want and never finds fault with the things

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I like. Exactly. People who are like, God wouldn't bring judgment on people. They don't have love for God because they created their own

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God. Right. Because they're not trying to think through why would

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God bring judgment? They're not interested in loving God and wanting to know what is

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He thinking? Because He's God. He's perfect. He's the one who's on mission.

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If He has all knowledge and all power, maybe I should try to figure out what He's doing and why.

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And the scriptures reveal that to us. But as you say, sometimes we want to just make

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Him up in our own minds and our own hearts and just worship that God. My God would never do that. You're right. Because He doesn't exist.

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My imaginary friend wouldn't do a lot of things. Because... Yes. Other questions or comments before we go?

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Alright. Number 18. If we love God, we have all winds blowing for us.

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Everything in the world shall conspire for our good. We know not what fiery trials we may meet with.

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But to those who love God, all things shall work for good. Those things which work against them shall work for them.

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Their cross shall make way for a crown. Every crosswind shall blow them to the heavenly port.

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Hopefully you understood most of that, even if you're not a sailor. What is he talking about all this wind?

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So now we're kind of going right back to title of the book. The first. I mean, the motivation to love

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God is that... What? All things work together for good. All things work together for good.

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The crosswinds. Those things that would hinder a ship from making forward progress. You would think, ah,

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I don't need this. But indeed, you do. Right? And He's working for good. And so you can love

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Him for that. And so it's right there at the heart of the book, this focus.

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We love God. Everything's working for our good. So we should continue to love Him and love

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Him more. Number 19. Lack of love to God is the ground of apostasy.

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The seed in the parable which had no root fell away. He who has not the love of God rooted in his heart will fall away in time of temptation.

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He who loves God will cleave to Him as Ruth to Naomi. Where you go,

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I will go. And where you die, I will die. But he who lacks love to God will do as Orpah to her mother -in -law.

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She kissed her and took her farewell of her. That soldier who has no love to his commander when he sees an opportunity will leave him and run over to the enemy's side.

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He who has no love in his heart to God, you may set him down for an apostate. Hmm. Thoughts on that?

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Some motivation by talking about the negative. What is lack of love for God?

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Thoughts on that? Do we agree with this? Mike and then

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Pam. If you love me and obey my commandments as commanding officer, so we lack love, of course we're going to go over to the enemy's side in our rebellion and that can lead to a state of apostasy if it's not an act.

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To depart from God, to depart from his commandments, to willingly go on to the other side.

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What's that? Oh yeah. And under greater condemnation too, right?

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For knowing the truth and departing from it. Pastor Anthony and then Erica. Broken love for God is going to result in broken gratitude.

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Recognizing the depth of your sin and the depth of God's love for you and that will keep you from apostasy.

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Right? Because you love God, you recognize that he's the only thing.

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Jesus is the only way. So that's going to constantly bring you back because he's the only God you died for.

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No one else has. So if you recognize that and it's like that, Jesus loved me to death.

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When you have that in your mind, you know we use that phrase, oh I love you to death. No you didn't.

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Jesus did. Right? And you go back to that and say, wow he loves me to that extent.

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And that's what keeps you coming back, recognizing that it's my sin that separated him from me.

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He separated me from him. But he solved that problem to bring me close. Yeah.

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Erica. Can this be applied to love in general? Like for us.

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So at first I was thinking of in marriage. If you truly love your spouse, if you truly love anything, wouldn't it be forever?

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Yeah, I mean love, again, because it's not just a feeling. Right? Because feelings can come and go.

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I mean, not in my marriage. But in other marriages. See?

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See? Feelings never go. She's just filled with joy. But I've heard in other marriages, feelings can come and go.

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Right? But the Lord doesn't command us to have family. He tells us to love.

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But love is shown through our actions. For God so loved the world he sent.

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Right? His only begotten son. Love is shown in actions. So yes, love should abide forever.

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If you love someone, you're going to love them forever. People want to redefine what love is.

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If you don't make them happy in the moment because you're not doing what they want. You're telling the toddler, no, you have to go to bed.

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No, you can't put the fork in the outlet. You don't love me! Okay. Right?

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So they might not always say that you love them, but love is informed by God's word.

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And that should last forever. And you think of marriage, till death do us part, covenant institution there.

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But yeah, our love should abide with all. The other example that came to my mind is the bond servant.

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And the contrast of loving or serving out of obligation versus serving out of love.

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In the law of Deuteronomy, which for anybody who doesn't know what

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I'm talking about, a servant, after he had served his term, if he decided he loved the family and wanted to continue serving, he could basically bond himself to the family.

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And that's kind of the contrast of just fulfilling your duties and actually wanting to show love and be a part of it.

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I think on this side of eternity, we're never going to love her. We're only going to love the way God loves us.

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It's only going to be until we get to the other side that we're going to be able to love the way we're supposed to love. So it's difficult on this side.

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We could all say, oh, I love you forever, and something happens, and then all of a sudden, oh,

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I don't love you. It's like, well, again, not in my marriage, but the other people, that's maybe what happens.

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Let's take this away from Barrett, before somebody gets in trouble. Israel's being dragged off to exile by Babylon, right?

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And what does Israel do? They go into cahoots with Egypt.

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God said, never go back to Egypt. Why? Because they were up against dire straits.

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They forgot their first love. Right? That's all right.

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Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. The apostate is one who professed to be a believer, but was never truly a believer.

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And so we see that parable with the soils, all those ones that died off were not true.

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John says, John says, they went out from us because they were never truly of us. If they were, they would have remained.

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But they went out, proving that they weren't of us. There's teaching out there today that you can lose your salvation.

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That's not what Scripture says. Scripture says they were never of us. Jesus says, depart from me.

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I never knew you. I knew you for a while, and you left. So, lack of love to God is the ground of apostasy.

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People will come in, and I remember speaking to a fella just a little older than me.

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I knew him years ago from church, from youth group. He was involved, and he did a newsletter, and he was in a

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Christian band. He started a Christian band. He's putting out albums and stuff like that. Later on,

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I see him on Facebook, 10, 15 years later. Atheist.

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That's what he's calling himself now. What happened? He goes, it got me through a hard time in high school.

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He wasn't popular or whatever like that. He found a welcoming body in the church, loved him, took him in, and then once he kind of, he just departed.

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It was no longer convenient for him anymore. He wanted to chase after his sin, and so he says,

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God doesn't exist. That's apostasy. He professed Christ, sung about Christ, but he left.

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There was no real genuine love. It was a time of convenience, and so we have that, and we'll see.

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When persecution comes, you'll see how many people who you thought, because they showed up for church, they showed up for everything, but when it counts, when it matters, off they go.

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We're heading into those times now. So it's sad, but we should be motivated to love

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God. He never wants us to be true of us, and so we continue to repent of our sin, commit ourselves, use the means of grace.

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I'm going to finish off the last one, and we'll have some more discussed next week, but at least we'll finish the motivations here as given.

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So number 20. Love is the only thing which we can give back to God. If God is angry with us, we must not be angry back.

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If he chides us, we must not chide him back. But if God loves us, we must love him back.

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There is nothing in which we give back to God but love. We must give him our love for his love.

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Thus we have seen 20 motives to excite and inflame our love to God. The only thing we can give back is love.

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What else do you have that you can give to God? Nothing.

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Heaven help you if you try to give anger or chiding. Now we're back to the toddler stage, thinking that they're wiser than the parents.

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Right? No, of course, the only thing that's fitting, the only thing that's appropriate, the only thing is love that we should be giving back to him.

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And knowing that that's the only thing that we should give back to him should motivate us. He's given me everything.

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I want to love him. I want to be pleasing in his sight. And so, again, being intentional about growing in our love.

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You know, I'll leave it at that. Questions or comments? No? I have a question.

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I just want to say something. Some people think that God gives me everything. It's like, you know, you've got the best house, you've got the best everything.

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And I feel so blessed. I feel like I have everything I need. And I've always had everything. God has always provided for me.

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So, for me, his love and kindness is better than life. I know

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I have a very simple life, but to me, I feel like I'm rich in Christ. I know it sounds weird, but I go around to have a surgery for his knee and things like that, you know, and I was in the hospital taking care of him and come back and everything.

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And I would come home, somebody would drop off a plant. And then two days later, somebody would want food. And I would go, who are these people?

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And it was such a blessing to see God doing this at the time when I was hurting the most.

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And I tell people, I said, he's my husband. You know, Ralph is my husband. He so loves me.

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You just cannot love him back. And you love him back by loving others too. I keep dying here.

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He's my husband. He came in this awesome husband Ralph. Where are my boys?

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As Pastor Anthony said, to grow in love to God is to grow in gratitude to God.

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And so when you love God, again, it's sanctifying. We have to grow in our maturity.

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We have to grow in our love. Grow... When we grow in that, we become content.

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We become grateful. And we see, look how God has blessed me.

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There's people who look at their circumstances and they could have the penthouse apartment in Manhattan.

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They could have everything. People are like, oh, if only I had that. And they can be miserable.

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If they don't have love, if they don't have love for God, they're missing out on peace. They're missing out on contentment.

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They're missing out on so much. And so, humanly speaking, they think, oh, they have everything. And we could be in a shack on the side of the road going, man, my life is awesome.

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Because you're seeing clearly. And love for God helps you to see clearly. It helps you reduce the errors in your perspective and everything like that.

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So, yes, that makes perfect sense. I just want to add something in terms of the motives or not the motives, but we were talking about the means of grace earlier at the beginning.

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And Jerry was talking about some of the means of grace that we use to inspire love for God.

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And I have another one that I thought of, but it kind of falls under fellowship, but it's basically discipleship and mentoring.

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Because I find, I've found in my own life that not having men pouring into me, pointing out in my own life the things

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I should be grateful for, the things that I should be thankful for in what God's doing in my life.

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Once I had that, once I started getting men in my life who love God themselves, they were able to show me things in my own life that helped me to recognize, wow,

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I do have so much. I should be so much more thankful for these things. Because I think that oftentimes we tend to get into that personal mindset of, okay,

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I have to read my Bible. I have to go pray. I have to do these things.

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When we're not having people surround us or get in our lives, help us to really flesh out those things and pray for us and to encourage us in ways that we wouldn't know.

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You're actually kind of touching on what we're going to start with next week. We've been talking about 20

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Motivations for Loving God, and I'm periodically, regularly kind of saying, how do we stir that up?

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Because it's taken us five weeks, so I don't want to leave everyone hanging like, hey, he keeps telling me I should love God. I'm drowning here.

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Tell me. So yes, to kind of whet your appetite, and then yes, these are some of the things that God gives us, but we'll talk a little more in depth starting next week about what shall we do to love

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God. But you're right on point there. When we think about the means of grace, the

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Word, prayer, worship, fellowship, God gives us the body. He gives spiritual gifts for us to help build up the body.

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It's not for ourselves. So the body needs us, and we need the body, and this will help us to love

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God more. Indeed. We'll stop here. I'll pray, and then we'll go to our time of corporate prayer.