The Dimensions of Agape Love, Pt. 2 (08/20/2023)

Good morning, everyone. What a great day in the Lord today.

Everyone really bubbly. I like it. I like it. In fact,

Paul was wondering if he'd ever be able to start. No one is paying any attention to Paul. I told him

Myron's secret. Myron Golden says, just go like this. Everybody will see it and freak out and shut up, you know?

I don't think Paul wants to try that one, though. It works, doesn't it, Dave? It works with big crowds.

Well, good to see all of you today. And we've had such fun. We're a little bit behind time, so I'm going to jump right into the message and get started here.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for the service already today, for all the prayers that you have heard, and all the needs you will meet.

And thank you for giving us your word, your everlasting word. And we ask your

Holy Spirit to be our teacher now as we go through it together. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, we've been talking about marriage and family for a while in between books.

Normally, we're studying books verse by verse. And we just finished one, and so we're doing a topical on marriage and family for a little while.

And we started out talking about the role of the man, the husband in the home.

And we're still sort of on that. And we sort of took a rabbit trip. I shouldn't use that word anymore.

Some people don't like it. Let's just say we diverged to focus on one of the main characteristics of the man in the home, which is he is the lover in the home.

And this picture is Jesus Christ and his love for the bride, which is the church. And each picture is the other, like the relationship between a man and a woman in marriage teaches us a lot about Jesus' relationship with us.

But as we study Jesus' relationship with us, it teaches us a lot about what our relationship in a marriage should be like.

So you can go back and forth, and each sheds light on the other. Does that make sense? And so we're still talking about love.

And that particular type of love in the Bible, there are three kinds. But we're thinking of the one that is

God's love. It's called agape. And the Bible doesn't say God loves. It says God is love.

There's a difference. And so humans cannot have agape love unless they're born again.

If they're born again, and the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in our body, then we have

God in us. And we gained a lot of things at the moment the Holy Spirit saved us. We gained over 33 different things.

One is the faith of Christ. Another very important one is the love of God. So God put that love in our hearts for each other.

And now if we're in a marriage, we can have agape love for the spouse and vice versa. The thing that's interesting about agape love is that it does not depend upon the object of the love.

So think about that a minute. Let's say Charlotte loves me. And she has

Jesus in her heart. So she has that extra love that natural humans do not have.

Natural humans, all they have is a form of love called phileo love, which means I like you. So I only like you when you're treating me well.

You get it? See, that's human love. Well, you treat me well, I like you a lot. You treat me not well, I don't like you so much.

That's human love. God's love does not change. So because she has agape love for me, when

I don't treat her so well, she loves me the same. Now she has the other kind too, and that can go up and down based on how

I treat her. But the agape never changes. And marriages have to have the agape if they're going to last.

They have to. So that's kind of what we're talking about is that form of love.

It does not, when I said it doesn't depend on the object, I am the object of her love and have been since she was quite a young lady.

And I won't say the age, because some of you moms who have young daughters would not like us talking about that age. But anyway, it was pretty young when we fell in love with each other and started dating.

We were childhood sweethearts. So I was the object of her love. So when we talk about agape, she loves me.

She loves me despite how I treat her. Her love for me does not depend on what I do.

You see, that's what I mean when I say it. It doesn't have anything to do with the object of the love. It's the lover that makes the decision.

So in the heart of the one who's doing the loving, that's where the love comes from, not from the person that they love.

That person can be doing well or not so well, and the love doesn't change. You got it? Everybody got it?

So that's what agape is. Okay. So we're talking about that. Now, last time in Ephesians chapter three, if you want to turn there,

Ephesians chapter three, verse 18 and 19. Before that, we talked about the apostle

Paul, which actually the Holy Spirit's definition of love as he showed the apostle

Paul what to write. And so Paul gave the definition of love in the letter to the

Corinthians. And then Paul, by the Holy Spirit, gives the dimensions of love in Ephesians chapter three.

So we have the definition and we have the dimensions. So last time we talked about the dimensions. And if you just look at Ephesians three, verse 18, it gives them to you.

And this whole little part of this chapter is really Paul praying for his converts that they might understand

God better. Okay, so it's a prayer. It's like a prayer. So Paul is praying for the new

Christians that he led to Christ and praying that they might know God better. Well, this particular aspect of God, now he's saying,

I want you to understand God's love better. So here's what he says about that. That you may be able to comprehend.

What does that word mean? To understand sort of deeply, to understand all the workings of something, right?

That you may be able to comprehend with all saints, like with the whole church, that the church together with the new believers, everybody would be able to comprehend.

What is the breadth? And I want you to count these. I'm gonna give you the dimensions of love. Count them with me. There's one, right?

The breadth, the length, the depth, and the height. And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, which means you can't understand it.

It's so deep. You can't fully understand it. But Paul wants us to know more and more about it, right?

That you might be filled with all the fullness of God. So how many dimensions of love did we see there?

Four, so we live in how many dimensions in our world, in the universe? Three, so God's love is one dimension higher than the dimension we live in.

And if you study physics, you will understand that if you live in whatever dimensional world, we live in a three -dimensional world, it is virtually impossible for you to understand or comprehend even one dimension higher.

So think about it. God's love is impossible for us to even understand if we didn't have this book right here.

You could not by nature understand it. You have to have inspiration. You have to have a

God -breathed book called the Bible where God reveals to us something that we can't understand in a three -dimensional world.

And that's his love. The breadth, the length, and the depth, and the height. Now, so we talked about that in detail.

We talked about it from a geometric viewpoint last time. And we also went on and talked about it from a philosophical viewpoint.

So I'm just gonna review the philosophical part. I believe that the breadth of God's love kind of shows the heart of God's love.

You can think of it, if you think of breadth, it kind of goes sideways, right? So you can think of Jesus holding his arms out and allowing sinful man to nail his hands to a cross.

That is the breadth of God's love. There's nothing that ever happened in all the universe or all of history, or even prehistory, that shows

God's love more than that. So the breadth of God's love is a picture of the heart of God where he is willing to give his only son to save his people.

And then we can think about the length of it. Well, length, if you think of a line, if you learn in geometry, when you learn how to draw a real line, a real line doesn't have dots at the end, it has arrows, which means it extends forever in both directions, right?

If you put a dot, it's a segment. It's not really a line, it's a line segment. But a real line goes forever in both directions.

So I think the length pictures, not only the strength of God's love, but picturing that strength as being eternal.

It's an eternal love. Once his love is upon you, it is everlasting.

That's why people that believe you can lose your salvation are so wrong, because he loves us with everlasting love, and there are a thousand other reasons you could prove that you cannot lose salvation once you have it, because you didn't earn it, it was given to you as a gift.

So you didn't earn it, you came to unearn it, but that's a whole nother subject. But when you talk about the length or the eternal nature of God's love, it says, he that has the son, that's in the present tense in the

Greek and English, right? He that has the son already has life, right?

And it talks about eternal life, how long does eternal last? Well, so let's put it this way, when can eternal stop?

It cannot, so if you already have it and it can't stop, how can you lose it? Anyway, I love that topic, but I gotta get off of it.

So the length of God's love shows how eternal his love is, and then the depth of his love shows the soul of God's love.

In the Greek, it can be translated profundity, which means the profoundness of God's love, means it's basically beyond our ability to totally understand the depths of it, right?

So that's the depths of God's love. And then the height, it goes all the way to heaven, doesn't it?

But I think this speaks of the mind of God's love. And the reason I wanted to review that a little bit is because what I wanna move into now is talk about that somewhat.

The height of God's love, the mind behind God's love. Would you agree with me that love is not just an emotion?

Would you agree that, especially if we're talking about marriage, because I mean, we're really talking about love here, and we're talking about God's love for the church, but it is a picture of the man's love for his wife.

It's a picture of that. Now, if the man's love for the wife is right, everything in the marriage will be right, unless the woman is wicked.

But I'm assuming she's saved, okay? That both parties are saved people. Now, would you agree that not only does that man sort of probably notice the woman before she notices him, how many of you agree with that?

God made it that way, right? Would you agree with that? So is that bad or wrong if God made it that way? No, it's how it's supposed to be.

So would you agree that the man's heart may be turned by that woman? But would you agree he also makes an intellectual choice to start giving her candy and flowers and wanna spend money on her, take her out to eat and all these different things and talk to her all the time?

So there's an intellectual choice as well. There's an intellectual aspect to love.

How many of you agree with that? Go like this. Okay, if you don't agree, go like this. Okay, that's the person who just flipped out with like the emotion of love.

There's nothing intellectual about it, but there is, there is. All right, so with that in mind, I want you to think about from God's viewpoint, let's talk about Christ and the church and let's talk about God's love for his people first.

And we're gonna use that as an illustration for how if the man could learn to love like that, it would fix the marriage if the marriage is broken, even if the marriage is limping a little bit.

If he could learn this lesson, it would fix everything in the next few weeks even, doesn't even take long.

Maybe moments of time, it can be fixed. So that puts a lot of responsibility on the man, doesn't it?

And yeah, we've already talked about the woman. In fact, we got some people angry about us about that part, what the

Bible says about the woman's role. So we may not cover that again because we sort of covered it under a different topic recently, but we might touch on it a little bit.

But right now we're talking about how the man is supposed to lead in the home and how he is the lover of the home.

So in Ephesians chapter one, go back a little bit in your Bible, a couple of chapters back, and let's start with about verse three.

And I wanna talk about the mental, intellectual aspect of God's love.

Why do we call God a person? We don't mean by that that he's sinful like us or flesh and blood like us, but he is a person, isn't he?

Because we were creating his images. That's really why they call us people, not why we call him a person. He was a person first, okay?

So why do we call him a person? Okay, but why?

Why is he referred to as a person? He's personal, which means what? He has the attributes of a person, so what are they?

What attributes does a person have? Okay, you have an intellectual aspect.

You can think and make decisions, so you have a will. What other aspects? Ah, you have an emotion.

You can get angry, you can get happy. You can be, what'd you say?

You just said emotional in general. Yeah, all different kinds, love, hate, right? God has all that.

What else? Verbal, communication ability,

I love it. Thank you very much. Any others? Well, you can teach, you can share, so now, would you agree that the

Holy Spirit has all those attributes? Okay, therefore, he could be considered a person in the sense that he has those attributes, right?

What about Jesus? What about the Father? All right, so when we say that God is one

God subsisting as three distinct persons, we don't mean he's three different people, but we mean that each one of the

Godhead is a person. Do you get it? See the difference? It's really hard to talk about because when they say, well, it's three in one, it makes us think, well, you got

Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit, and they're like me, and Raymond, and Sharon are like three people, and we're all different.

It's not like that, but it is that the Holy Spirit is a person, and Jesus is a person, and the

Father's a person because all three of the Godhead have all the attributes of personhood. So theologically, when you say they're persons, that's what it means.

It doesn't mean people, it means person. Do you understand? I wish there were a better word. We've been struggling with that, some of us at Coffee trying to think, well, what might be a better way to say it?

But for now, we'll use that for the Trinity. So God, listen, when you wanna talk about love, can you think of a reason that God would have to exist as a triune being?

He can't just be God like the Islamics think or the Buddhists think. When you get to the

Hindus, there's like how many thousands? We don't even know. Tens of thousands of gods, they think. But he can't just be

God like the Islamics think. Why is that? Because you can't know him. You can only know him through the

Trinity. Well, there's a great reason. You couldn't know the Father since he's outside of time and space.

You wouldn't even know him without Jesus being God with us and explaining him to us. What's another reason?

The Bible doesn't say God loves. Remember, it says God is love. Well, if there's no triune being, who can he love before he made anything?

Before he made anything, before there was time or space or anything made, how could he be love if there's not an object for the love?

So he had to have the Jesus to love and he had to have the Holy Spirit to love and they had to have each other to love. And so God has always existed as a triune being.

That's why in the very first chapters of Genesis, when he made man, he said, let us make man in our image.

The Hebrews have a problem with that still, don't they? They don't understand because it's bad grammar to them. But what they don't understand is perfect grammar.

It describes God perfectly. So here we have God having this ability, all of these human person abilities, one of which is intellect, and that he already loved and was perfectly in love and perfectly satisfied before he made anything.

So he did not need us, did he? He didn't need to make man.

But let me ask you this, did he want to make man? Did he do it because he chose to do it? Does he choose to do things because he wants to do things because he's a person and has emotions, intellect and choices and all these other things, right?

Okay, in fact, God's the only one that has true free will because free means sovereign.

All the rest of us, yeah, we make choices and our choices are important, but they're all influenced by something else.

All of our choices are influenced by something. God's are not. God the Father's choices are not influenced by anything or anybody other than himself.

He's the only one with genuine, true free will. I know some theologians say, well, Adam had it before he fell.

No, he didn't. He didn't really, he just thought he did. And we today, we think we do, don't we?

We can make any choice we want to, can't we? From our viewpoint, would you agree with that? Okay, so, but from God's viewpoint, not so much because he's already seen the choices we will make in the future.

And if he's already seen it, you ain't changing it. Now that'll mess with your mind, won't it? So let's just stop there on that.

Okay, so now we see that God not only has a heart to feel with, with regard to love, he has a mind to on purpose show that love to whom he chooses to.

Would you agree with that? That doesn't the, let's go back to the humans again. So the man notices the girl first, the young boy, notices the girl first.

I was 17 when I noticed her, Charlotte. You thought I was pointing at Sharon, right?

Charlotte, okay, because I didn't know Sharon yet. And it's lucky for Charlotte that I didn't know

Sharon yet, right Sharon? Yeah, that's right, okay. So I was 17 and I noticed her and she did not know

I was noticing her. You need to turn your ears off, Maddie, just forget about all this story.

I've already talked to her about it in the car and her parents don't even know about it, right? We've had this talk, just the two of us.

But anyway, so that make you nervous, won't it, Katie? No, Dave, make Dave nervous. But anyway, so I noticed her and so I called her on the phone and said, let's go out and I spent some money on her and the rest is history, right?

We went to on a date, had a meal and stuff. So God made us in his image.

Now I want you to look at Ephesians chapter one, verse three. You got it? I gave you an hour to find it, okay.

Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ.

Now, would somebody do me a favor? Look at Ephesians chapter one, verse one. I didn't print it here.

Read, Dave, can you get it on your phone or Dave Senior? All the apostles of Jesus Christ, all the saints of the church of Ephesus.

Okay, stop right there. So who did God write the book of Ephesians to? Because you always want to ask, who's it written to and what's it about?

Who's it written to? Saints in Ephesus. Saints, okay. And if you kept reading, read a little farther, you'd find it applies to Christians.

To the faithful of Jesus Christ. There you go, thanks. So the saints at the church of Ephesus and all

Christians everywhere that are in Christ. That is only who this book, it is not written to the world.

Ephesians is not written to the people outside these walls unless they're born again. It is not written to them.

It's written to saved people. Now, what should the saved people do with that information though? Share it, right?

Share the gospel with those who don't know the Lord yet as long as the Holy Spirit leads you to talk to that person.

Don't talk to just everybody. Talk to the ones the Holy Spirit leads you to talk to when he leads you to do it and give them some of this information.

Maybe some of the truths, but a lot of them will come from places like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and Roman and maybe a few from Ephesians.

But most of Ephesians is written to the church to save people. Now, with that in mind, blessed be

God and Father, our Lord. So who is our, who is that? What group of people is it talking about?

Our Lord. Saved people, right? Our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us.

Who is us? It's saved people. Blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ.

According as he has chosen us in him, who has he chosen?

The people who will be saved. Not everybody, not every human, but every person who will be saved in all of human history, at least up to the end, we know at least up to the end of the church age, which is in our future.

All right, so according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. So when did he choose that we would be in Christ and we would actually become saved people and be his?

Before he made anything. So how much did you have to do with that choice? You weren't born yet.

You had nothing to do with it. And let me ask you this. How much did you have to do with your physical birth? I love asking women this.

It's like, how much did the baby have to do with helping you have the baby? And they say, he was the problem.

He did not help, right? Right? So nothing. The baby just enjoy, when the baby's born, he enjoys being in the family, but he didn't cause it, right?

So Jesus said, you must be born again, which means spiritual birth is the same way. You don't cause it. God caused it and it started before he made anything.

Now, this is what scripture says. I know the modern church doesn't preach this anymore. It's okay with me. Whatever they do is what they do.

But we're gonna preach the Bible here. And as long as I'm here and my kids and my kids' kids are here, we will preach the

Bible here. And that goes for you and your kids too, and your kids' kids. I mean, the

Mitchell's could be wiped out and it would still go on with the rest of you as long as you're here and your kids and your kids' kids are here.

Because that is what we stand on, is the truth of scripture rightly understood with the 10 rules of proper

Bible interpretation, which you've got to, you can't cheat. You've got to want to know the truth. You can't cheat. You got to go by those rules.

So he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. Why? So that we should be holy and without blame before him in what?

In love. So love, God chose us because he loved us already.

Now think about that. Before he made anything, he already knew you by name and he loved you.

And therefore he chose you. Having predestinated.

Now see that's, people love to say, oh, well, he didn't predestinate anything. He'd be saying, he just foreknew it.

He just knew, he looked out and he saw people asking Jesus in their heart and so he chose them. Okay, so that's like saying that, you know, we looked out there and we saw that Biden would become president, so we voted for him.

It's backwards. That's backwards. It's also upside down. But anyway, so like it's backwards.

You vote for him so that he can be president, not because, you know, it's backwards. So when the

Bible says God predestinated us to become adopted as his children, as you see in verse five there, having predestinated us unto adoption to become born again, that means

God chose who would be saved. And the ones who would be saved, he already loved them before the foundation of the world.

He already loved them and he knew them and he gave them to Jesus as a love gift. Why? Because Jesus loved the earth and he loved humans, but the entire human race was lost in the garden.

The entire race was lost. And God the Father came up with a plan of salvation through grace to save some, it's called a remnant, to save some from a fallen race and they are called the elect or the chosen ones, the ones that he chose to give to his son as a gift.

That's what the Bible teaches. Now let me ask you this. Does the modern church teach that still? No. The modern church teaches that you choose your own destiny by making a choice.

And if you'll pray this prayer, dear Jesus come heart and say amen, you will be saved. Show me that in the Bible. What the

Bible actually says is God has to call you. The Holy Spirit has to call you or you'll never want

Jesus. You won't even, there's none that seeketh God, not one. So unless the Holy Spirit calls you and wakes you up, you won't do it.

But let me encourage you with this. Most of you know this. If you do want him, you couldn't do that as a natural man unless the

Holy Spirit had called you. You understand what I'm saying? So the interesting thing about it, the modern church for the most part may have it wrong in many respects.

But if they tell people, if you'll ask Jesus in your heart, you'll be saved. As long as they would just add this, if you'll ask him in your heart, because you want to, not for a religious reason, but just because you wanna do it, then they would be okay with that.

I'd be okay with saying that, wouldn't you? I mean, none of us, whether we believe that way or this way, we can't mess

God's plan up. God is not gonna let you and me or any preacher stop one of these that he knew before the foundation of the world from being saved by telling it to him wrong.

So don't worry about that. Now we should worry about being wrong and we should tell the truth. But there are others, and sometimes us, if we get something a little bit off, we certainly could, couldn't we?

But God is going to take the truth that we tell and use that in people's hearts, and that's great. Now, will we have to answer if we lie to people?

Yeah, when we get to heaven, we'd have to answer for it. You think that would go well if we taught false doctrine on purpose?

I don't think so. All right, so God's love began before he made anything.

And he had an object of his love, which was Jesus Christ, his son. And because he loved his son so much and he loved the human race,

God the Father gave him some from the human race to save them by grace. Now, what does grace mean? Totally undeserved favor.

He favors us even though we don't deserve it. Because would you agree we're sinners just like any other person walking around Corsicana?

How many of you agree with that? Okay, so do we deserve to be saved? No. Did he save us because we deserve to be saved?

No, did he save Israel as a nation among all the nations of the world because they were the strongest and the greatest nation?

Why did he save them? Hmm? He loved them, and why did he love them?

Because he wanted to, right? That's it, same reason he saves us. For his good pleasure.

So here we see he predestinated us to adoption that we would be adopted as children and why are we adopted, by the way?

Oh, here's a great question. Are the Jews adopted or just the Gentiles? That's what

I used to think, but I don't think that anymore. I changed my mind about a year ago, Matt, in case you hadn't stayed.

Like, you gotta keep coming to coffee, right? Okay, I changed my mind about it, but my mind now is more right than my mind was a year ago.

So think about it. The Jews are adopted too because how many begotten sons are there?

One, what's his name? Jesus. He's the only begotten son of God. The rest of us are adopted.

So he predestinated us, look around, those who are born again and who will be born again and who have been born again to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ.

So can a Buddhist be saved without Christ? No. Can a Mohammedan be saved without Christ?

No. Could they be saved if the Holy Spirit opened their eyes and they saw that Jesus was actually the Messiah?

Yes. All right. According to what, Dave Huber? You already said it. The good pleasure of his will.

So the people that get saved are the people that God wants to save. Now, let me ask you, does that bother you?

Be honest with me. The people that get saved, because would you agree

Jesus said there's only few that make it through the narrow gates and broad is the way to hell and many there be that go there.

So does it bother you that God chooses who the ones are that get to go through the narrow gates?

It might. It could bother you a little bit. Okay, it won't bother you if you've been around here for very long, but because you studied it a lot in the scripture is the reason, we shouldn't joke about it.

It's because you like it. Once you see it in scripture, you see it on every page. But let me put it in a different way.

Do you think that Jesus Christ should have the right to choose who he marries?

Well, let me ask you young men in the room, all you young men, do you think you should have the right to choose who you marry rather than someone else telling you you gotta marry that person?

Now, I know there's cultures where they do it that way, but glad I didn't live there. So how would you guys rather have it?

Where you get to choose, right? But so why do people have such a problem with the fact that Jesus can choose who he marries, who is part of the bride of Christ?

He gets to choose who that is. Wouldn't that be pretty natural for it to be that way?

God says it is that way. The great Charles Spurgeon, who is known as the Prince of Preachers among Baptists, but every denomination counts him as the

Prince of Preachers, said that very thing that I just said. I borrowed that quote from him. One day in a sermon, he had some

Armenians in his crowd who disagreed with him. And I'm sure he raised the level of his voice.

And he says, who wouldn't give Jesus the right to choose his bride? Like that. You think they got the point?

I bet they did. To the praise and the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

And so here you see, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, and all of these beautiful points of salvation.

So many of them are mentioned in this beautiful passage. In Ephesians. Now go with me to Romans 8, verse 35.

Romans 8, 35. In this beautiful passage, God chose the

Apostle Paul to give us the definition of agape love in the Corinthian letter. I believe the first one, wasn't it?

Or is that right? First Corinthians? We're just there and I've already forgotten. I'm 69 years old.

I'm not supposed to remember everything. But then in Romans, he also talks about some, what speaks of the definition, but also the dimension of God's love, because look at it.

Romans 8, 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Who is us there, by the way?

Well, if you went and you read the first chapter of Romans, you'd see he's talking only to Christians there again.

Not every person in the world, but born again people and people who will be born again. People who, listen, if you're sitting here and you don't even know if you're born again, that's okay.

Just ask yourself this question right here. Ask yourself this question. Do I care about my soul?

Do I care whether it goes to heaven or hell? Do I have anything in me that wants to know God someday?

Do I have anything in me that wishes I knew him now? None of those desires are in the heart of a goat, as the

Bible calls them. Those are what sheep think. Now you can be a lost sheep. I was a lost sheep till I was 24 years old is when

I got saved. But I was always a sheep because God knew me before the foundation of the world.

I was never a goat. You get it? You understand the difference between goats and sheep, right? So sheep represent saved people in Jesus's vernacular.

Goats are like Satan's people. So you can be a lost sheep, but you have these desires in your heart that, well,

I do have a conscience and it bothers me when I sin because I know God's watching me. Goats don't think like that.

I wanna be saved someday. Goats don't think like that. I care where I go when I die. Goats don't think like that.

So think about it. I mean, if you're having these thoughts, the scripture says, whosoever desires to call upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. Isn't that great news? That's called the gospel, the good news. Now, in this passage where he describes

God's love, who will separate us, the people who belong to Christ, who belong to God or who will belong to God, who will separate us from Christ?

And he names everything in the physical world, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword.

Verse 37 says, nay, and all these things were more than conquerors through the love of him. So none of that can separate us from God's love.

In verse 38, he says, I'm persuaded that neither death or life or angels. So now it goes up higher into like the next world, like into the third heaven, you know, a different dimension than here, but still in space and time, but it's in what we call heaven and nothing there can keep like Satan and demons.

None of that can separate us from God's love. Nor height, nor depth, verse 39.

So here's some of the dimensions, height, nor depth, nor any other creation shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

That's how sure your salvation is once God has put his love on you. And I will agree that even though God did that before he made anything, sometimes if this is our lifeline and we're living year after year, sometimes we have to get to a certain point before we know that he loves us.

And brother Otis used to call that the day that God notified us that we always belong to him. I like that,

I like that terminology. The day when the Holy Spirit woke you up and you knew you wanted Jesus as your savior, that day, we call it being born again, but that's when you know he'd always loved you.

You might not have known that before that point in time and that's okay, but God knew it and he was tracking you the whole time.

So there it speaks of this beautiful, infinite nature of God's love.

Now here's what's interesting about it. You might say, well, you preached that last time. Why are you talking about it? Because that is my habit to do, but there's a reason behind it.

When the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible, he did not put chapters and verse numbers. Did you know that?

Like this letter to the Romans is just a letter. It's like a love letter from God to us, to his people.

So there is no chapter eight and then you finish verse 39, talking about the height and the depth and nothing can separate you from God's love.

And then all of a sudden you switch and you're in chapter nine and it's something totally different. It's not like that.

It's just the letter continues. So look at what comes next. Now, this is really important because what we're trying to discuss is the infinite nature of God's love, but also the intelligent nature of God's love.

The intelligent ability to select who you love. Now, I don't know any human that would say that human love is different than that.

Human love has emotion and selection. It is selective. We don't love everybody, do we?

Anybody says they love everybody is lying. We do not love everybody. Okay, someone walks in your house and wants to kill your wife and your children.

Do you love that person? You might, but you'll kill him in the love of Jesus, right? I mean, I will.

That's how much I love my family. Now see, people get this wrong. It is my love for my family that kills him.

Now you think, put that in God's context. If that's true of us and we're creating his image, do you think

God might kill someone because he loves Jesus so much or loves you so much? Does the

Bible not say touch not God's anointed? What does it mean happens if you do? You could get killed by God.

Many examples of it in the Bible and in life. So love demands intellect and intellect makes a choice on who it loves and who it doesn't, but the modern church does not wanna give

God that ability. The modern church wants to take that away from God, but man gets to keep it. Man makes all the choices.

Man has the free will. God does not have any will. See, the ability to make a choice means you want to make the choice, which means you have a will.

You want to do something, but God doesn't get to have that. God apparently to the modern church is the same as it was to modern science if you go back roughly a hundred years ago,

Darwinism, where, I mean, some of the Christians at that point thought Darwin was correct, which we now know he was not, but they think, well, if there is a

God, he just flung everything out there and then folded his arms. He's just watching it happen to see what'll happen because he didn't know.

He's just gonna watch and see what happens. How many of you think God is like that? Well, see, that's how they want salvation to be in these churches is that God's just going like this.

He's gonna see who gets saved and who doesn't. It'd be pretty scary if it were that way because you know why that would be scary?

Because the Bible says there's none that seek God, not one. It says that in Romans. It says it in Isaiah. Not one lost, carnal, natural person would ever seek

God. So if God just sits there and he watches like this, how many of you'd be saved right now? Not one, not one.

But God looked and he actively with his will because he wanted to said, I'm gonna pick that person and I'm gonna love them forever and nothing's gonna stop that.

Even if they don't treat me right, I'm gonna love them just as much. Even when they sin,

I'm gonna love them just as much. And pretend there's no chapter, but look at chapter nine.

Now this is, I will promise you, I grew up Southern Baptist. I'm not anymore.

Hadn't been for many, many years. I don't know what we are now. Probably more Baptist than anything, but more like Spurgeon was, you know, than like modern

Baptist, I would say. Why don't we put that on the sign? Spurgeon Baptist Church. See how many people would come then.

I don't think it matters. Not that many come anyway. But anyway, so if we're gonna think that God loves and he just loves everybody, why is it that Romans chapter nine has never ever been printed in the

Southern Baptist Sunday School quarterly to be studied? Why?

Well, let's read it and maybe we can see why. Look at this, Romans chapter nine, verse one. This, remember, this is right after Paul talked about how infinite his love is for his people.

That nothing in this world and nothing in that world and nothing that was ever created can separate

God's people from God's love. And then he says, and I say the truth in Christ, I lie not.

Why do you think Paul said, I lie not? Because a lot of the people in his audience are gonna think he's lying right now when he says this, what he's about to say.

I put, look, he's a regular person, right? I know he's an apostle, but he's speaking to regular people.

He said, okay, you're gonna think I'm lying now because I just told you God's love is infinite and I'm about to tell you, but it's not for everybody.

And you're not gonna like it and you're gonna think I'm lying. I tell you the truth and I lie not, but he says, my conscience also bears witness in the

Holy Spirit that I'm telling you what the Holy Spirit's telling me to tell you. That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart for I could wish that myself were cursed from Christ, which means he would go to hell, for my brethren, he's talking about the

Jews, my kinsmen according to the flesh who are Israelites to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises,

Abrahamic promise, all the promises, whose are the fathers and of whom is as concerning the flesh,

Christ came. Christ came from the Jews, didn't he? He was a Jew as a man, he was a

Jew. He said, I would wish myself cursed so that these people would be saved, these

Jewish people, but who are they? They're the ones that crucified Jesus, right? Okay, so he says, but I wish

I could be cursed so that these people could be saved. Not as though the word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all

Israel, which are of Israel. So Paul comes back and says, look, I'm not saying that no

Jews are gonna get saved, but what I'm saying is that everyone that calls himself a

Jew or an Israelite, they're not all gonna be saved because they're not all really, truly Israelites.

They're just religious, all right? So neither because they are the seed of Abraham will they be saved, but because they're in Isaac, shall thy seed be called.

So what do we see from this little passage? First of all, it shows that not everybody is gonna be saved.

Secondly, it shows that not everybody is part of the family of God. Thirdly, it shows that people don't get saved because of their physical family.

Like how many people have you heard say, well, my dad and my granddad were pastors. So yeah, I think, I hope I'm going to heaven when

I die. That does not mean they will, right? Just because your daddy was a preacher or your granddad was a preacher does not mean you'll get saved.

And so this is what Paul's saying, just because they're from Abraham doesn't mean they're gonna be God's people.

They've actually got to come through the messianic line. And when he says that they've got to come through Isaac, this is what we call an allegory.

It is a physical picture of a spiritual truth. It doesn't mean they've got to be like, literally be in Isaac's lineage because I don't think many of us in the room are, but we're saved, right?

What it means is Isaac pictures the spiritual side of the

Abrahamic family. Ishmael pictured the carnal side that didn't get saved. So it's not enough just to be a child of Abraham because you've got that other group too.

You got to be part of the spiritual family. You've got to be born again.

You've got to have your eyes open. And notice what it says. It's just quite amazing that verse seven there in chapter nine of Romans says, neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but they got to be in the spiritual, spiritual family of God.

And they have to be what? Called. Most of us in this room today, if we were honest, we say we grew up in church, going to church on and off like me.

I didn't go much, but when I did go, I did not hear preachers saying from the pulpit that you must be called.

You need to pray that the Holy Spirit would call you to Jesus because you can't be saved unless he does.

How many of you ever heard anybody say that? What did they say? Pray this little prayer after me, your dear

Jesus come to my heart and say amen. That's what they said. But the Bible says they got to be called, but no one talks about being called anymore.

Why? Because it's humanistic. We want salvation to be us. But the

Bible says we love God because he what? First loved us before he made anything.

And then he calls us to himself and wakes us up, let us know you always been part of my family. I'm a shepherd near the sheep, and I'm yours and you're mine.

And that's how salvation works. And that's called the calling. So this shows that we're not saved because of what physical family we're born in, but it also shows that we must be called.

In John chapter one, verse 12, but as many as received him to them, gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.

But listen to this, talking about being born again, right? Who were born not by the blood.

So like it's not your family lineage that saved you, nor of the will of the flesh.

It's not because you wanted to get saved. You hear what the Lord says? It's not because you want to, because there's none that seeketh

God, not one. It's not because your flesh wanted to get saved, nor of the will of man.

It's not because your mama wanted you to get saved, or your daddy wanted you to get saved. None of those is why you're saved.

And then he tells why you are. It says, but of God. God chooses you and calls you.

Isn't that something? It's right there in your Bible, right before John 3 16 comes along a chapter or two later.

So this shows the workings of God's love and how it is selective, and how it's according to who he wants to love.

And all of that is found in here. And it shows that one must be called to be saved. And if you have any desire in your heart for Jesus or for God, it's because you've already been called.

The Holy Spirit has already been working in your heart. And there are yet multiplied millions and billions of people on this planet that don't know a thing about God and don't care to.

They might get called in the future, but they hadn't been called yet. But they have to be if they're going to be saved.

And this is what the Bible teaches. So God's love is selective. Now, it also shows we gotta be called.

And the Holy Spirit is the one who does the calling. What do you think about this verse? While we were yet in our sins, has he saved us or called us?

So who did that? The Holy Spirit. While we were yet in our sins.

So we didn't save ourselves. He saved us. So we see several things from this passage and others.

Not everyone who claims to be a Christian is one. That's what Paul's saying, that not all Israel is

Israel, right? Just because you were born an Israelite doesn't mean in your heart that you have a circumcised heart, that you've been saved.

It doesn't mean that. Just because you go to church does not mean you're saved, right? Not everyone that claims to be a

Christian is one. Number two, salvation is not passed down from generation to generation physically or by genetic process.

Number three, only children of the promise are children of God. That's what

Isaac pictured. Only people who are people of the promise become children of God.

And God has to inform us so that we know that we are. And that's what happens when we call it getting saved. I got saved.

I got in. The Holy Spirit came and he moved me to want to pray for Jesus to save me. I would never have done that on my own.

And if you say, well, that's not true, Brother David, then I would ask you, then why didn't you do it the day before you did it? Why didn't you do it one minute before you did it?

Because you did not want to. You liked being God. You liked making every choice in your life.

And only till the Holy Spirit breaks that down and makes you realize that Jesus is a better Lord for your life than you are, only then will you get saved.

You see my point? I mean, this is what scripture says about salvation. Number four, children of the promise are called and righteousness is imputed, which means

God gives you Jesus's righteousness and takes your sin and gives that to Jesus. And he looks at you as if you never sinned.

That's imputation. And that's called positional righteousness. And that's how God saves us.

And then the fifth thing is salvation, therefore is not by man's righteous acts, but by God's imputation of righteousness to whom he chooses.

And guess who he chooses to give his righteousness to? Everyone he loves.

Everyone that he has loved from before the foundation of the world. So salvation is not by having done good or evil, but by election and grace.

John chapter one, verse 30 says, and this is he of whom I said, after me cometh a man which is preferred before me.

And this is John the Baptist talking about Jesus. And he says, this man, Jesus, is the one that when he comes,

Paul, I mean, John the baptizer said, I baptize you with water. But he says, when he comes, he will baptize you with the

Holy Ghost. That's the calling. That is when he called you. And all of that beautiful passage and John talks about that.

It's all so clear once we see it. All right, we're out of time.

We spent a lot of time today talking about the different things. I didn't really get to the good part yet.

I never do. I never do. But let me just tell you what we'll do since we're out of time.

Here's what we'll start out next Sunday. And when I get up here, the Lord willing, someone raised your hand and said, you promised not to review today, okay?

And I'm gonna start right here. And I'm gonna talk about love at first sight. So now we're gonna switch from God's love, which is a picture of our love for our wife or our spouse and vice versa, it works both ways.

Each picture is the other. But we're gonna talk about love at first sight. And so we're going to talk about Isaac and Rebecca.

And it's a beautiful love story. If you're like anywhere from say 12 years old to about 18, you'll definitely wanna be here.

It's awesome. And, but all the rest of us still love thinking about when

I first met Charlotte. Think about that a lot. And so this is what we're gonna talk about straight from the

Bible next time. And we're gonna look at intentional love. And that's the kind of love

God has. I hope we showed that this morning when we were talking about predestination and so forth, that that's how

God loves. He loves who he chooses to love. And we do too. And so what we're gonna do to bring this to the marriage is that the husband is the lover in the family.

The woman is the responder to that love. And that husband chose that wife on purpose.

And he needs to give the same eternal love to her that God gives to us when he chooses us and not put his eyes on another as long as that woman is alive on this planet.

And even after she's gone, she'll haunt you if you put your eyes on another. So we'll talk about that next time.

Let's stand and have prayer together. Might be legal, but it might not be expedient.

All right. Lord, thank you so much for your word. Thank you that you are our great teacher.

Thank you that you give us the command to go and share these things with others around us.

Help us to have the boldness to do that and love to do that and the knowledge to do that.

And Lord, go with us into our time of fellowship now. Bless the meal we're about to have. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

are dismissed. Yeah.