The Love of the Father — Alan Martin

But I can sure say that I have been encouraged by being with you. You know, Paul said, when he wrote to the Romans, he said, I long to see that I might impart to you some spiritual gift. And he says that is that you and I may be mutually encouraged by one another's faith.

And I've experienced that here. I'm grateful. Paul, it may be in here. It's okay. You know, what has happened in the last five years since I've met Brother Randy, one of the things that I believe I've come to understand more and more of is I've come to know Jesus Christ more.

That's just, we are born an infant in Christ and we grow up into the full knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I've grown into the full knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, I just believe, or more of that full knowledge, not that that's a complete word.

Growing in the Knowledge of Jesus Christ

But I've come to understand a little bit more of what the great need in a person's life is. And if you would, look in Galatians chapter 5. And it took me, I've been a slow learner in this. But this is much more of a goal that I seek to see working in my own life and the lives of those few, you know, those sheep that the Lord has given me to just be a shepherd over those brothers who I've been called to walk with.

In Galatians chapter 5, verse 6, it says,. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any real power. Neither circumcision or uncircumcision has any real power. But faith through love working.

This is what I believe I've, by His grace, been enabled to see. Whereas early in the zeal for righteousness and desire to see righteousness established in others, I often turn to touch not, taste not, handle not.

A righteousness that was based upon the law. And by the way, the law is holy and righteous and good. The law is the very words of God. But the law has only a shadow of the good things that were coming.

Not the reality themselves. Because it says in the time past, including the time of the law, God spoke to our forefathers at various times in various ways. But in the last days, how has He spoken to us?

By His Son. And when God wanted to reveal Himself fully, He didn't call Himself Yahweh. He didn't call Himself Jehovah. He didn't call Himself Elohim. He called Himself by the most pure and perfect relationship that's so simple that even a child can understand it.

Jesus reveals Him as Father. And this is what I've come to see, is that more and more of my calling as I seek to walk with other brothers is to bring them into a full understanding of God as their Father.

This is what the law didn't offer men. But it is why the Father said that the days are coming when I'm going to make the new covenant. And it's not going to be like the former covenant which I made with the people of Israel as we spoke a little bit last night.

It's because they were not faithful to me, although I was a husband to them. But in the new covenant, they are all going to know me from the least to the greatest. And this is what I... It's just a desire in my heart to just be a part of that process of being used by the Father to help others come unto the full knowledge of who the Father is.

Love as the Goal of the Commandment

Because the strength of the New Testament is, and the new covenant, and God's righteousness working in our lives is fully comprehending the love of God as our Father. Look in Paul told us in Timothy. Paul told this to Timothy in 1 Timothy.

Chapter 1 starting in verse 3 where he says, I urged you when I went into Macedonia to remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables or endless genealogies which cause disputes rather than godly edification, which is by faith.

Then verse 5, I want to read this from the Greek. I'll translate it as I read it. It says, Now the end or the goal of the commandment is love. That's the goal of the commandment. The end or goal of the commandment is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and a faith without hypocrisy.

So the goal of God's commandment, the goal of His desire is for you and I to fully come to the place where the love of God and the love for one another is fulfilled in our life. Our Lord made it so simple that when He established the new covenant He summed all He desired for His disciples to do in one word.

A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples by the love ye have one for another. What was new about that? The law said, first of all, that they were to love their neighbor as herself.

And even in the law you had the commandment that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, your mind, and all your strength. So how was it new? Like John says, it's no new commandment we write to you but one we've had from the beginning.

Yet a new commandment we write to you, one that is seen in Him. What was new about it was, as I have loved you. How longsuffering Christ was with His disciples. And how Christ's entire life with His disciples was to introduce them to His Father.

It was all about Him bringing them to know the love of His Father. And this is what we're about to be with one another. The reason I'm to know Randy, the reason I desire to know Joey, or Darren, or Jason, or Andrew, or Caleb, or Dan, or anyone, or Sean, any one of you, is for the desire.

Is that you would come to fully know the Father. And you would know the love of the Father because it says, Paul said, love is the fulfillment of a law. Look in Romans, do you see that? Romans 13. Romans chapter 13, verse 8.

Owe no one anything except to love one another, that he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandment, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet.

If there is any other commandment, all are summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. And as, therefore, you and I become fully rooted and established in the love of God.

If that's what, as we become rooted and established in the love of God, this is what happens. All the righteousness of God begins to be fulfilled. Love does no harm to His neighbor. Therefore, love literally fulfills you becoming perfect like your Heavenly Father is perfect.

He's kind to the wicked and the ungrateful. He sends His Son upon the righteous and the unrighteous. The rain falls upon the just and the unjust. Because if you greet only those who greet you, what do you more than tax-gatherers?

If you lend to only those who lend to you, what do you more than the heathen do? When we begin to fully comprehend by the revelation of the Spirit how Jesus Christ has loved us, we are going to see all of our relationships made righteous.

You'll never be properly related to each other any further than you properly understand the love of God. If there's any sense why any one of us might be more one with someone else, it's because those two people find their unity in knowing the Father in the same way.

A .W. Tozer once said, you can take a hundred pianos and if you tune them to the same tuning fork, even if those hundred pianos are in a hundred different places, they will all automatically be tuned exactly to one another.

And you and I will begin to properly relate to each other only to the degree that we fully understand how the Father relates to us. And this is what Jesus Christ came to do. He did not come just to forgive us our sins and take us to heaven.

What He came to do is not only forgive us our sins, but take out the heart of stone that had no true capacity for genuinely loving another as God loved us. And to actually give the very nature of God, the very love of God, the very character of who God is, so that we can begin to relate to one another fully by the love of God.

Actually knowing one another by the Spirit and no longer after the flesh. Where this life we begin to experience one another, with one another, is we begin to walk worthy of the calling we received in all loneliness, in all meekness, in all long-suffering, in all forbearance, forgiving one another.

And if there's any ought, we actually love one another, we forgive one another just as God in Christ has forgiven us. And above all these things, we actually put on love which is the bond of perfection.

Forgiveness, Transformation, and the Revelation of Christ

And we begin to experience this. And this is how this began in my life. I told you a little bit last night that as I began to rediscover who Christ was and I began to see how far I had missed the mark, who I really was in the light of the real revelation of who Jesus Christ was.

I began to see how I was really treating my wife. I began to see how I was really dealing with my children. I began to see the attitudes I really had towards other brothers in Christ in comparison to a revelation of Jesus Christ.

And suddenly, I received much forgiveness. And what did our Lord Jesus say? He who has been forgiven much, the same, loves much. Can you see what a danger you are in when you think of yourself as self-righteous?

And you do not understand just how long-suffering God has been with you, how patient, how merciful, how good He has been with you. You will not relate to one another in any other degree than you are comprehending how the Father has related to you.

That's why John made it so clear. He had a clear understanding. No one who does not love his brother can love God. How can you love your brother or God who you have not seen when you do not love your brother?

You have seen. It's not possible. So what began to happen in my life is I began to rediscover the goodness and the love of God in Jesus Christ. My life began to be transformed. Here's how it was transformed.

Satan began to lose his power upon me when the love of God caused the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ to be shown in my heart. And as I began to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, as I began to see who Jesus Christ was, what happens according to the Scripture, we know when Paul said, and beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, what happens?

We're transformed into the same image. I began to be so raptured by the glory of how I saw Jesus Christ treat men, that I began to be set free from my ignorance. I used to perceive Jesus as aggressive and strong and rebuking men, and I projected that upon Him, and I would speak to men that way.

Who said that Jesus stood up and said, ye whitewashed sepulchres, ye brood of vipers. How do we know He didn't say, all you whitewashed... How could He say, oh Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered you under my wings, or gathered you together under me as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you were unwilling.

How could He weep over Jerusalem and not have such a desire to bring them to Himself? As I began to have a true revelation of Jesus Christ, the way I began to treat my brothers became so different. I began to see how long-suffering the Lord had been with me, how patient the Lord had been with me, how understanding, how full of hope He was with me.

And I began to actually help others come to an understanding of who Jesus Christ was. And part of that began, I realized it was a revelation in my life, and I realized this was going to take a revelation in their life.

You remember what Paul said in Ephesians? He wrote to the Ephesian church, for this reason I bend my knee and I pray to the Father, from whom all heaven and earth I characterize His name, that you be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the saints to grasp what is the height and length and width and depth of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge in order that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

And so one of the first things that began to happen in my life as a big change is I began to realize that my Father would give His Spirit to reveal His love. By His Spirit He would strengthen my brothers and sisters in their innermost being so that Christ could dwell in their hearts through faith, and that they would begin to be rooted and established in love.

And I began to relate to them in a way that love does. As the love of God began to be shed abroad in my heart, I found that the love of God does what it says it does. When Paul describes love in 1 Corinthians 13, what is the first adjective he uses?

Patience. Love suffers long. I found an ability to sit however long it takes with my brother. I stopped being exasperated with my brother. There are times I see brothers in our fellowship there, and I see them weak.

Randy even mentioned this tonight. He said, we who are strong ought to do what? Bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. And I began to actually have the Father's heart toward the brothers and sisters in the fellowship there.

And there were some that I was... And this has been a work. I wish I could say it began on this day, but the Scripture is clear that the path of the righteous is as the first gleam of dawn. It shined ever brighter into the perfect day.

As I began to see who Jesus Christ was, I began to relate in Him, in that knowledge of Him to my brothers and sisters. And I began to see things differently. For example, what can you tell when you see a brother or sister loving the world?

What can you tell? What's it an indication of? Right? It's an indication that the love of the Father is not in him. So what do you tell them to do? Stop loving the world, brother. Do you see? That's how I used to react to that.

Stop loving the world. You should stop doing that. You know, don't you know that that's wrong? You know? Friendship with the world is... This is how I would often deal with it. Don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God?

Whoever chooses to be a friend of the world becomes the enemy of God. But even then, I would project my understanding upon that. Instead of realizing something, the problem this brother is having is he doesn't know the love of God.

The love of the Father is not in this brother. You know, you can't love two masters. You can't love one... Because you love one and despise the other or you'll cling to the one and shun the other. So, instead of trying to tell the brother what they ought not to do, to stop doing, what I began to do is just pray, Father, open the door and I began to intercede for these brothers and sisters that they would come to see the love of God and they would get a revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Treasure of Christ and the Transformation of Desire

Because I remembered something. Much of the way this came to me, much of the repentance I was granted was I saw something greater. And when I began to see something greater, it changed my heart. And then I began to recognize and remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Things like this, by revelation, came to me. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is like a man passing through a field. And as he passed through a field, what did he discover? Treasure, hidden in the field.

And then after he discovered treasure in the field, what does the Scripture say he did? He hid the treasure and then what did he do? That's the same way I remembered it. That he hid the treasure again and then he sold all he had to buy the field.

But we've left out something. Did you just mention it? Yeah. It says he hid the treasure again and in his joy, he went and sold all he had. What must occur in a person that suddenly causes all of their possessions and all the things that they've counted as their security and all the things that they have made a part of their life to suddenly, joyfully, abandon all.

Completely discard. Joyfully. That's the kingdom of God. Can you tell a person you must forsake all? Is that what Jesus said? You must forsake all in order to follow Jesus. Or was Jesus simply telling us the truth?

Listen. No man can come after me unless he deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Was he saying you must? Or was he simply expressing a reality that you just won't be able to? This man who found the treasure hidden in the field is a picture of a man denying himself.

And he does it joyfully. How does he do it joyfully? What caused him to sell everything he had joyfully? The treasure he found. He's so absorbed in the revelation of what he's discovered that it's totally changed his heart to what he once valued.

You see how it happened to the Apostle Paul? The things I once counted gain I now count. Compared to what? How can a man suddenly count the things that were the most precious to him not only as lost, what did he go on to count them as?

Dumb. What can cause a man to so radically change? Having something new to compare them to. Compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ. And this is what has been the biggest change in my life in the last five years.

Is where I once focused on trying to tell men what they ought not to do and what they must start to do and what they ought to do and should do. I began to preach the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ.

And I began to walk in the joy of the Lord. And I began to be filled with peace. And I just began to testify of the goodness and the greatness of Jesus Christ. And I just began to help men try to see something.

You know, this is a simple illustration but I want to share it with you not just to be funny or clever but I want you to understand something. Not one of you here goes to the bathroom and sticks your hand on the lever and hesitates and says, well, maybe I can still use this or something else.

I really don't want to give it up but I guess I should. You know, when we have a revelation of the glory of Jesus Christ the things we once counted gain are so transformed in our mind that it becomes like dung.

I don't know about you but I grew up in South Texas where it was very hot. And one of the things if you would go to the park or something you would have a picnic or you would have a camp and these huge trash bags.

And you know how people are especially a lot of kids they'll have drink soda bottles in there and their plates and stuff and it all gets dipped down. And if you're one of the guys who has to clean up the trash cans you know what I'm talking about?

You pick it up and you gather it out and it's bulging. And what's it usually doing from the bottom? I've never seen a person just hold it like this. I've never. I mean, I don't know about you I don't even want it touching my shoes.

I hold it as far away as I can. Because suddenly seeing the glory and the goodness of God in the face of Christ the world has nothing to offer me. I've just come to understand every good and perfect gift comes from my Father in heaven.

Every good and perfect gift. The world has nothing for me. I suddenly began to see what David had when his heart was right. When his heart was right it was, and having thee in heaven I desire nothing upon the earth.

David, Repentance, and Returning to Intimacy with God

And I began to see what a person needed to do when they had lost the revelation of Jesus Christ. What they needed in their life was they need to be renewed. They needed the renewing of the Holy Spirit.

You remember what happened to David when he was unwise and he stayed in Jerusalem when it was time when the rest of the kings went out to war and he was walking on the palace and he saw Bathsheba and he called to her and he sinned with her and he murdered your husband and he lived this lie until a child was born and the prophet came and reproved him.

Do you remember what the Lord had Nathan say to him? Why did you despise me? At one time, David, when his spirit and heart were right said, and having thee in heaven I desire nothing on the earth. When David's heart was right it was thy word is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.

When David's heart was right is the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul, making wise the simple, rejoicing the heart, enlightening the eyes. More to be desired are they than gold even much fine sweeter also than honey, than the honeycomb.

When David's heart was right he said, thou hast set my heart free to run in the path of thy commands. And in the fallen state of what he did what it really indicated is he had fallen from a great height.

He had left his first love. And the reason he did what he did was he no longer had intimacy with God. He wasn't knowing the Father. And what was his solution? What did he do? How did he address the problem when he really saw it and was able to say against thee and thee only have I sinned and done what is evil in thy sight.

What was the real great evil? It was wrong to commit adultery with Bathsheba. It was wrong. It was wrong to murder her husband. But was that the greatest evil? You know what the greatest evil was? To grow cold in your love of the Father.

To desire anything more than to be pleasing to the Father. And when he saw the real great evil he addressed the real issue. And he said, create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. In the right spirit no one needs to tell me I should pray.

I have always loved to do what I enjoy doing. No one has to tell me. I don't have a Randy in my life telling me I ought to read the Bible. I don't need one. Spirit is Jesus Christ in me loving his Father.

You see? And so when I began to see brothers not doing well by revelation I began to see what they needed help in. They lost sight. They may remember the law. They may remember what it's like. They may be walking in a recollection of things they had.

This is a dangerous thing. Even the Ephesian church they tested false apostles and were able to discern them to be false. They endured hardship. They were even doing more than they were at first. And they had not grown weary.

And they had done it. They were doing all of this having fallen from a great height. The end of the command is love. And what had happened is they had left their first love. And when we see brothers and sisters struggling if they're struggling in an area of obedience you know what the real struggle is?

Faith is no longer working through love. You know why? None of the Lord's commandments are burdensome. Every word of God is flawless. What did Jesus say? My yoke is easy and my burden is light. And when you take His yoke upon you and you learn of Him and you learn that He is meek and lowly of heart you find what for your soul?

Rest. And what happens is when you have lost sight of who Jesus Christ is and you've really fallen from a great height you begin to experience something. You begin to relate to a way of God that you will never prosper in.

And you'll see this happening in one another's lives. And what God really wants us to do is learn how we can come together and make sure that no one develops this sinful, unbelieving heart in departing from what?

The living God? In departing from this intimacy with God. Departing from God Himself. And just beginning to try to do what's right. Do you realize that that is really that is the common evil in the world?

The common denominator of all evil is they try to do what is right from an intimacy of knowing God. So we must help one another discover this. What does this look like? I don't really have the full Old Testament that I want.

Well, I have my Greek Interlinear, but I want one of you brothers to help me. Joey, you're right there. Would you mind turning to Isaiah? Turn to Isaiah 28 and see what happens when you have really fallen from a great height.

You're no longer walking in an understanding of the love of God. And I believe this will start in verse 13. No, I'm sorry. It's going to start in verse 9. If you would read through verse 13. Isaiah 28 verses 9 -13.

To whom would He teach knowledge? And to whom would He interpret the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just taken from the breast? For He says, Order on order, order on order. Line on line, line on line.

A little here, a little there. Indeed, He will speak to this people through stammering lips and a foreign tongue. He who said to them, Here is rest, give rest to the weary, and here is repose. But they would not listen.

So the word of the Lord to them will be, Order on order, order on order. Line on line, line on line. A little here, a little there. That they may go on, that they may go and stumble backward, be broken, snared, and taken captive.

You see what's happened when a people have rejected the real rest that God seeks to bring them into? You see what the Scriptures become to him? What the relationship to God becomes? You understand a little here, you understand a little there, you have a little victory here, you have a little victory there, you do this a little and you do that a little, but you're going backward.

If that's what it becomes to you, you're going backward. You're not prospering. And I can assure you that the walk in Jesus Christ when you are genuinely growing in the knowledge of God, you know what you're seeing it as?

You are searching for the incomprehensible riches in Jesus Christ. Just like Proverbs chapter 2 says this, My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom, applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God, for wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your souls.

You know, one of the things that I've been encouraged by this weekend, at least yesterday and today, is to see people hungering and thirsting after righteousness. To see people wanting to know Jesus Christ.

A big change in the last five years of my life was that I've seen the fruitlessness and the ineffectiveness of telling people what they ought to do. And instead, preaching to them the revelation of the riches of God in Jesus Christ.

The glory of God is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. And I'm reminded, as I begin to re-experience it in my own life, Jesus said, I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. And so what happens is I describe to them, not seeking to condemn any man, Jesus Christ said, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. He did not come to condemn the world. The world was already under condemnation. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever has not the Son shall not see life.

But the wrath of God abided on him already. The world is already condemned. I began to see that God was in Christ not imputing men's trespasses, but reconciling them to Himself. God was in Christ reconciling them to Himself, not imputing their trespasses.

The Gospel Reveals the Glory of God in Christ

And this is what now I labor to do when I see a brother or sister not doing well. I begin to see that what the real problem is is they have lost sight of who the Father is. They have lost sight of the revelation of the goodness of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Isn't that what Paul said? That even if our Gospel is hidden, who is it hidden to? Those who are perishing. And why are they perishing? It says because the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they cannot see the light of the good news in the face of Christ.

So what I begin to try to labor to do with my brothers and sisters in the Spirit is I begin to share with them the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And I just begin to try to help them see how they have lost the revelation of Jesus Christ.

How Christ has become to them of none effect. And what it means when it says how they're developing this sinful, unbelieving heart and departing from the living God. Because we know that's in Hebrews where it says we're not to give up beating together as a habit of some, but we're to exhort one another daily as long as it's called a day, lest anyone be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

And it says we're to see to it that there be in none of us an evil, unbelieving heart and departing from the living God. Let me take you back to an example. Just to remind you, and I know you know these things.

I kind of feel like Peter. It's like I'm going to make every effort to remind you of these things even though I know you know them. And some of you might be firmly established in the truth you now have.

That's good. I'm going to hit the nail on the head about three or four more times. You know, this is the obvious, but what does it mean to have a sinful, unbelieving heart and departing from the living God?

Take yourself back to a time when there were a generation of men that God had called out of Egypt, delivered them from the most powerful nation on the face of the earth, celebrated the Passover with them.

They were baptized into Moses, into the cloud, into the sea. God literally manifested Himself in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, fed them daily with manna, led them through a wilderness, made sure that their clothes did not, their shoes did not wear out, their clothes did not wear out.

And He promised this entire generation of whom when they first came out of Egypt there were 603 ,050 men, 20 years old or more, and He said, I am taking you out of a land of Egypt and I'm bringing you into a land flowing with milk and honey, a land where there's houses, cities built, houses filled with all kinds of good things, orchards already in full production, fields already cleared and in cultivation, and I'm bringing you into a place of rest.

603 ,050 men were all promised this. And after a period of time, when God showed Himself faithful and merciful to them, testing their hearts so that they would really know their own heart, they came to the very border of Canaan and the Lord told them to spy on the land, to send out men to give a report on the land and 12 men were chosen, one from each tribe, and they came back and 10 of the men gave a very factual report that there were giants in the land, they were strong and they were tall, they lived in well-fortified cities and that the difference in comparison between their size and ours was drastic.

We were almost like grasshoppers in their sight and that there's no way we can go up and do this in our own strength. Was there anything inaccurate about that? No. A completely factual report, void of faith.

And when the people heard it, they wailed, they wailed in their tents and they murmured in their tents and they said, why did the Lord bring us out here to die in the wilderness? It would have been better for us to be slain by these people, it would have been better for us to just die in the wilderness.