Like invite you to turn with me at this time in your Bibles to first John chapter four. First John chapter four. We find beginning with verse seven through chapter five and verse three what I would consider along with first Corinthians chapter thirteen to be the two primary. passages in the New Testament on the subject of love, while love is mentioned in many other places, and it's very important to the overall teaching. of the gospel and of the Word of God, these particular passages deal with it in depth. And I want to look not exhaustively at this passage today, but I want to bring to light what is contained in this passage on the practical impact of God's love and its power. and its effect in changing people's lives. And so before we read the scripture in its entirety, let's go to the Lord again and ask his blessings upon his word. Dear Father, we come before you because you are the author of Holy Scripture and we are in need of you and the work of your spirit to illuminate the scriptures to our hearts and to our minds. Break the bread of life. Feed us with the manna which is from above. Give us understanding. and change us, impact us, whatever each of our needs may be. Work graciously on our behalf by the power of your spirit, and we will give you thanks and praise and continual worship for your goodness to us in this regard. For we pray these things in Christ's holy name. Amen. So I want to begin reading with chapter four and verse seven. where it says beloved let us love one another for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God for God is love in this the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit and we have seen and testify that the father has sent the son as savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God God abides in him and he in God and we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love. And he who abides in love abides in God and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us if someone says I love God and hates his brother he is a liar for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen. How can he love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him that he who loves God must love his brother also. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone who loves him who begot also loves him who is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. So, John, the apostle, has a particular style, especially in this epistle, and that style is he continues to communicate some of the same truths over and over. using different words and different language, and he communicates these truths. He's trying to drive home certain points. And, of course, the love of God is found throughout the epistle. John, of course, himself is known as the apostle of love. And he is communicating these truths to us in a sort of a repetitious way in order to establish a certain concept, a certain truth, and for those truths to be impactful, for those truths to influence us greatly. Now, this particular passage that I mentioned, I would consider to be one of the primary passages on the subject of love. And this passage has as its foundation the attribute of God, the attribute of his love. Twice in this passage, we're told God is love. And secondly, we are told furthermore in this passage that God's love is primarily manifested to us in the death of his son, that God has given his son to be a propitiation for our sins. Now, these are the two greatest concepts when we come to think about the love of the teaching of love in the Bible. These are the two greatest concepts. Now a lot of people that talk about love as it concerns The world at large is maybe, you know, maybe a watered down version of Christianity or a version of Christianity that lacks any doctrinal basis whatsoever. Their concept of love has to do with a feeling and with the things that are on the surface and nothing much deeper. But you'll notice that in verse 8, we're told that God is love. In verse 9 and 10, we're told that God manifested His love to us by the gift of his son and you can't. These two truths are both captured actually in the most famous verse in the Bible for many people John 3 16. But today's message is not going to be upon these although it is built upon them. Because within these verses we see a focus, or at least what I want to focus upon, is the effect that God's love has upon those who have been cleansed by the death of Jesus Christ and who have Jesus as the propitiation for their sins. I see, I believe here in this passage, four effects of God's love. And I want to emphasize each of these four. There's probably some other things here. We're not going to look at every single verse. But we're going to see that John is bringing out these four effects repeatedly in different language within the passage that we have read. Now when I say that there are four effects of God's love here by effects I mean in invincible or inevitable a consequence or impression, something is being is being produced. Hence, the title God's love changes people. There is an inevitable impression that is going to be made upon anyone who has experienced and knows the love of God. What are those effects? So the first effect that we can see in this passage of Scripture is that God's love is the cause of our salvation. Our salvation grows out of something. There is a source for it, and that source is God's love. And so I think that obviously the book of First John is a book that is about salvation to Christians. It's actually about specifically about one element. of God's salvation, which is the assurance of salvation. And here in this passage, he is going to touch upon salvation in three particular areas. And I'd like for us to look at these three really quickly. If you look at chapter four and verse seven, the last of verse seven says, and everyone who loves is born of God. And then in verse One of chapter five, it says, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. So what you can see here in the very first place as we think about what John says about salvation is that God's love actually produces the new birth. God's love actually produces new life. We are by nature dead in trespasses and in sins until we have met Christ, until we have been saved by the grace of God and been brought out of darkness into his glorious light. And so to be born of God is to experience We would speak of it as either the new birth or regeneration, or our confession, of course, calls it effectual calling. It is the effective calling of the Spirit of God, and we are called from out of darkness into light. This is the doctrine that Jesus is seeking to teach to Nicodemus. Nicodemus, of course, was that prominent and influential teacher who recognized something significantly different in Jesus. He comes to Jesus by night, and Jesus takes time to instruct him and to point him in the direction of the necessity, the absolute necessity of the new birth. And, of course, that was based upon the promise that had been given in the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel is one of the prophets along with Jeremiah and a couple of others who really emphasize and teach the doctrine of the new covenant. And in Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 26, Ezekiel had said, Or is quoting God saying that I will give you a new heart and and I will put a new spirit within you and I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. And so the language there that is being used by the prophet is communicating to us a radical change. It is communicating to us that we are in desperate need and that only God can meet that need by saving us. And so God's love produces new life by taking a stony heart of unbelief out and giving us a heart of flesh that believes and that trusts. The second area that salvation is mentioned to us is in verse 19 of chapter four, where it says we love him because he first loved us. Now, here we are seeing that God's love produces within believers love for God. But the order is extremely important. A great deal of people think that they are saved because they decided to start loving God or they felt some affection for God or that they reached out after God. And he received them as they came in on their own. But here we see very clearly and in very practical, easy to understand language. We love God. because he first loved us. God always loves us first and we respond to his love of us then by loving him. If God does not love us first we will not love him. He must first love us. You see, the picture that we receive of this in the Garden of Eden is Adam and Eve knew God, fellowshiped with God, and then they sinned and rebelled against God, and then they hid themselves in the garden. They hid themselves because they didn't want to see Him. They didn't want to fellowship with Him, such as they had done previously every time during the day or at that time each day. Rather, they hid themselves. And who is pursuing them? God is pursuing them. God is calling them. He knew where Adam and Eve were. He knew that they were hiding. But He calls to them, clearly illustrating and presenting to us unmistakably that God is the one who seeks sinners. And sinners flee from God and run away from Him. This is also expressed by the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 8 when he's teaching on the great doctrine of justification. And he says in verse 5, he says, Because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. So Paul is expressing the same truth as John here in verse 19, but in more exalted theological language when he says that the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of love has been poured out into your hearts. And you can visualize this. This is something that is radical, is life changing, is powerful and is saving. It's the saving power of God. But then we see a third area in which salvation is is presented to us in this passage. If you look with me back at chapter four and verse eight you'll see in the first of verse eight it says he who does not love does not know God. And then in verse fifteen, it it says, whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God and then verse sixteen says, And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him. So, the third area in which salvation is presented to us in this passage is that God's love actually produces knowledge of and faith in Jesus Christ. So, when we look at verse 8, what we are seeing here is that he who does not love does not know God. The person who loves, we would say loves God first and loves others second, is one who knows God, has a knowledge of God, a personal and intimate acquaintance with God. This is a very personal knowledge. It's not just a knowledge of facts. or pieces of information, or a bullet list of things. So and so lives on this street, and they have this profession, and they have these hobbies in their lives, but rather it is a person that you know intimately. Maybe you have dinner with them, you meet for coffee, you know a great deal about them, their children, you know something about their background, and you have some concerns for each other. That's the kind of knowledge that is in view in all of 1 John, In all of the New Testament, for that matter, and when he comes into verse 15, it says whoever confesses this word confess, of course, it means to speak the same thing, to give assent or to agree with something that is being presented in this particular case is whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God. Not that Jesus is just a good teacher or that Jesus was an interesting person who helped a lot of people and who was concerned for the world that he lived in. No, this is a confession that Jesus, the God-man who lived among men and who took on human flesh, actually was God in human flesh and lived among us. Verse 16 kind of culminates this third presentation, this third area of salvation when it says, and we have known and believed the love that God has for us. Now, this is interesting because these two verbs are in the present tense and can be explained this way. We have come to know and continue to know, and we have come to believe and we still believe. You see, it's communicating something that has taken place, but it has continuing effects, this perfect tense of the verb. And a person who knows Jesus Christ, a person who knows God, is a person who's come to a saving knowledge of Christ and who continues to have a saving knowledge, is a person who believes or trusts or relies upon Christ and did that at some point, but continues to do that. It's not something that is simply a past tense event in which we say, OK, on such and such a day, I accepted Christ, even though I've never worshipped with the saints of God or very seldom ever worshipped with the saints of God. I have very little concern about the things of God. That's not the kind of confession and salvation that is being discussed here. So the first effect that the love of God has is it's actually the cause of our salvation. That brings us then to the second effect of God's love as it's presented to us in this passage. And before we go any further let me just explain this love. Or remind you I should say I believe that you probably have the understanding that the Greek word that that is found in 1 John, translated by our English word love, is the word agape or agapao. And this particular word is a word which means sacrifice. It refers to unselfishness and to a willingness to give. It communicates preference of others ahead of ourselves. And so at this point, if you could just let flash across your mind the reading of 1 Corinthians chapter 13 from just a few moments ago, you can see actually the meaning. So there's not a definition in 1 Corinthians 13, but there is a description in that chapter describing to us this love. This love is so deep. It is so magnificent. It is so wonderful that just to say sacrificial love or to say, you know, unselfishness or a number of other adjectives that could be given is not adequate. There's just a whole list that needs to be laid out before us in order for us to really appreciate fully what this concept communicates to us. Now, let me also add to this that agape was a very rarely used word in the Greco Roman world of the first century. And literally, the people in the world that John wrote this epistle to would have would have not known this word outside of the church. very much at all, and many of them could have easily have heard people ridicule and despise this particular concept of agape love as being ridiculous and weak. This was not the kind of person that people aspired to be, those who loved others, who preferred others. Their whole culture, and incidentally we need to recognize this is a, our culture is pretty much the same as the Greco-Roman culture. We're there for ourselves. We're here to be, you know, to be honored, to be received, to be accepted, to be presented with whatever and to be served. But Christ has saved us in order that we might serve and minister to one another and to others. And that's the emphasis that John has in this passage. And so The second effect of God's love is that it causes his people to love each other, to love one another. So the first effect is that it causes our salvation. But the second effect is that it causes us to be servants of one another and to love one another by that service. Now, there are three arguments that are given to us in this passage. Um, which support this truth that Christians are to love one another and that God's love for us, which came to us first and that caused us to love him, then moves us to love others as well. So, uh, the, uh, the first argument is that God, excuse me, that love for one another is commanded. we are commanded to love one another. Now, that's the concept that we recognize the first. It's the easiest to identify. If you look at verse 7, he says, Beloved. Now, this means that John is addressing his readers as fellow believers. There's an intimacy. John knows them. He cares about them. And he is appealing to them as Christians. And when he gives us his theme in 1 John 5, 13, he says, These things have I written unto you who believe that you may know. So he's talking to saved people, to churches in Asia Minor that he's addressing. He says, Beloved. And then he adds this. Let us. So he includes himself and I think this is very important for us. John is not here as an apostle or elder or some important figure writing an epistle to people and telling them to do something which he is not himself equally willing to do and that he sees as being binding upon himself. He says, Beloved, let us, let all of us who are the people of God, whether apostles or just some newly saved person or all the saints of God in between in the first century and in the 21st century and in every period that might be yet to come, let us love one another. Beloved, let us love one another. Why is that? For love is of God, he says. And then in verse 11, The last phrase, he says, we also ought to love one another. And this word ought is a word which communicates. and expresses moral obligation everywhere we find it in the New Testament and the Old Testament for that matter. Also, you ought to do this. It means there's moral obligation. We're being commanded to do something. In this case, it is to love one another. And then this this first argument that love for one another is commanded is kind of captured in its fullness in verse 21, which says, And this commandment we have from him that he who loves God must love his brother also. He doesn't say, now, I want to suggest to you that as much as is possible that you would love each other the best that you can. He doesn't say that, does he? He doesn't give us the option of doing so when everything is going well and it appears to be acceptable. No, he says you must. Love God and love your brother. He who loves God must love his brother also. Paul expresses this same truth in Galatians chapter five in verse 14, when he says, For the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The one word there that Paul captures is the word love. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The second argument that he presents to us, why God's love causes us to love one another, is that love of one another is evidence that we love God. You see, it's really easy for us to say, oh, I love you. I care about the saints of God. It's a different matter for us to actually love them. In chapter 4 and verse 20, it says, If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? So this verse becomes a key passage of Scripture showing us an argument that if we genuinely love God, that we're going to love others. And if for some reason we fail to love our fellow brother and sister, as God describes and commands us to do in His Word, then it is a lack of evidence that we are indeed a child of God. He revisits this again about halfway through chapter five, verse one, when he says, and everyone who loves him who begat also loves him who is begotten of him. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we keep his commandments. So what we're seeing here is evidence piled up that love for one another is the evidence that we love God. But there is a third argument that is also given to us here. If we look back to verse 12 of chapter four, it says, But a little bit past the beginning, it says, if we love one another, God abides in us and his love has been perfected in us. By this, we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his spirit. And then we can add the last of verse 16, where it says God is love and he who abides in love, abides in God and God in him. So the third argument that he gives us showing that God's love causes God's people to love each other is that love for one another is the evidence that God abides within us. This is a different way of saying that it's the evidence of salvation. But but and I don't need to say much about this except to abide means to remain and to continue. And so if God's love is in us, it's abiding and remaining. Therefore, if his love is in us, then we're going to love one another. Just as Christ has instructed us, and we're going to do that continuously because His love abides and continues within us. Now, what enables us to do this? Verse 13 tells us that it's the Holy Spirit. By this, we know that we abide in Him and He in us. because he has given us of his spirit. It's by the Holy Spirit who has taken up residency within us when we were born again into the kingdom of God that we are enabled to love each other. So just think about this for a minute. With God's blessings, this church will grow and prosper and people will be added and some people may be saved out of lives of horrible immorality. They may be saved out of various false philosophies or false religions. They may have various other different ideas and things that from childhood that they've grown up with. And then there's all the other obvious differences of backgrounds that we have. We come from different families. We come in some case in different nations and we have different cultural ideas that have been in our lives and others may have some different ideas. Are we going to love each other just as Christ has loved us? How are we able to do that? You know, some people that are just like us in many different ways might be very unlovable because they're irritable or because they have other issues and problems, and they rub us the wrong way, and we may find it a challenge to love them. But what we're seeing here, both in the fact that God's love has caused our salvation and that God's love causes us to love one another, and the arguments that are given to us with regard to this are unmistakable, that we must love each other and not come up with excuses for not loving them because we have been given the means to love each other, and the means is the Holy Spirit of God working within us. In fact, I would say in making application to your setting here as a church plant that hopes to be constituted in the very near future is that this is the indispensable prerequisite for God to be glorified in your church life and in your worship. Now, knowing the confession and the theological teaching of the confession is absolutely essential, and there are other matters that we might mention as well. But when it comes to the matter of fellowship, of cohesiveness, as you look at these cinder blocks that that make up the structure of this building here, there is cement between each of the blocks that are there. And we can think for just a moment about each of those blocks representing theological truth, or we can think about them as representing individual persons who profess faith in Christ and that are part of the fellowship. But the cement that holds those blocks together and that makes them strong and supportive of each other is love. It is the love of God that has been shed abroad in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit who's come into our lives. So when Jesus is just hours away from being betrayed by Judas and denied by Peter and forsaken by the other eleven, he says to those men, by this, All will know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another. So you can see that I'm not making up something here that's not biblical. Love is an indispensable prerequisite for church life, for fellowship. And the culture that we live in presently is changing at breakneck speed. Everything is changing before our very eyes. Christianity, which was respected and looked up to when I first began in the ministry 38 years ago, today is despised by large sections of our culture. And people who put up with it only put up with it insofar as we would be willing to compromise with the standards of the world and with the ideas that the world has. And so we're entering into a period in which we can expect persecution. And some of you maybe have already experienced persecution where you've lost out on something because you are a believer and because you're seeking to be faithful to Almighty God. So that brings us then to a third effect. And making application at that point was very important for us to move now to the third and fourth. Affects that of God's love, and so the third one is found in verses 17 and 18 of Chapter four. And I want to read these and then comment upon them and actually state for you what the effect is, but this is what they have. These verses read love has been perfected among us in this. That we that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love cast out fear because fear involved involves torment. But he who fears is not made perfect in love. So the third effect that I believe God's love in our lives produces is maturity in his people. Maturity. Obviously, we all need to mature, and there's no stage in our Christian lives in which we have reached a level of, the word that he is using here, perfected, mature. Actually, this word perfected means properly developed or fully ripened. It's used both in verse 17 and in verse 18. You see, that which is the end result of this perfecting work which is the work of love, is maturity. In other words, love's goal, God's love being shared abroad in our hearts, its goal is not that we'll just have a certain feeling that is satisfying or that is beneficial or that is helpful, but that we will be mature, that we will stand fast, that we will be, as he says here, confident. Actually, maturity is here identified in two ways, and I only want to touch upon these. In verse 17, maturity is identified as boldness. But back over in chapter 2 of 1 John, in verse 28, it says, And now, little children, abide in him, that when he appears, we may have confidence. Same Greek word is translated boldness. in verse 17 of chapter 4, that we may have confidence or boldness and not be ashamed of Him at His coming. The concept there in 2.28 is the exact same concept as in 4.17. John is just using little different words. Our translators are giving us a little different take on it. John is emphasizing here to us that maturity is going to be a boldness, and a boldness is required. This is not contrary to love. But it really communicates love. Now, this boldness has to do with the coming of the Lord or with the day of judgment. One place it says the coming of the Lord, the other the day of judgment. We know that these are two that are connected together in the scriptures. The Lord comes back in order to judge the earth and those that are in it and those that have been a part of this. And so, don't think of this boldness as something that is limited to the Day of Judgment or the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because boldness for the Day of Judgment and the return of Jesus is the direct result of how we have lived here and now. You cannot be bold on the day of judgment if you haven't been bold in living in this world. We're not going to have the confidence that we should have if we're not maturing and growing in the Lord. One of the saddest things in all the world is to see a person that may be 12 or 14 years of age that because of a birth defect is maybe like a two year old. That's so sad. We see that and it's very sad. situation. God's intent is for every newborn believer to grow into full maturity. And his word is realistic. And John, earlier in this epistle, has noted that there's some young people and there's some young men and there's some elderly men. There's different degrees of growth that he sees there. We're always going to have those different levels of growth and maturity within the church. But none of us should ever be content with the place that we are at. We should be pursuing more and more clearly and unmistakably to be more and more like Christ. And one way in which that maturity is identified in this passage is as boldness. And in verse 18, that maturity is identified as fearlessness. And that's the other side of the coin of boldness. One is confident or bold is not fearful. The word that's translated fear here is the word phobos. And and from which we get outward phobia. It has to do with dread or terror or or the the opposite of confidence or boldness. And and here in this in verse 18 is communicating very clearly to us a person who wants to withdraw or to flee because of feelings of inadequacy. As you come into being as as a new church, you're going to be called upon maybe to serve in some way that you have not known before, or to sacrifice in ways that you haven't before. In a larger congregation, you may not have been called upon, but in a new church plant, you may be given opportunity to do so. Many people will excuse their fear as being love. Sometimes we don't witness to people in the workplace Because of fear and we excuse it as maybe we love this person. They're going to misunderstand or there may be other opportunities and challenges that we have in life that are really fearful. But we must be bold and as we grow in the Lord, our boldness will increase. We'll be more confident. We'll be able to trust God with whatever people think about me or however they treat me. I'm going to take my stand for the Lord. I'm going to speak on his behalf. I'm going to live. But I'm going to also speak the truth of God, and I'm going to be a bold and a fearless servant of the Lord. Maturity is identified by John here as boldness and as fearlessness. I think this is illustrated for us in a number of saints of God in the Old Testament and in the New, but one of them that I like and I've been studying lately is Jeremiah. Even his call, I think that Jeremiah was called, most of the scholars think, somewhere in his mid-teens. In his mid-teens, he's called of God to the prophetic ministry, and he's told very straightforwardly that he's not going to be popular, that everything is going to be difficult, hard, and is going to be a massive trial for him. Yet, he perseveres, and he continues to serve God. He struggles. He tells us about his struggles. People plot to kill him. He's thrown in pits. All kinds of things horrible happen to him. is starved to death at some point. I mentioned Jeremiah to say this, that when God called him, one of the things that God said to him in Jeremiah 1 and verse 10 is, see, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms. And I want to say to you who are in under the sound of my voice today that God has set you also over the nations and kingdoms. We are the children of God. We have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. No one can do anything to you apart from the will of God. Your life is protected completely. If the Lord is your shepherd, you shall not want. He is going to provide everything that you need. He's going to sustain you in every way. God's love produces maturity in his people. And last of all, God's love causes us to keep his commandments. Notice how that this has all built up to this particular point. So let's see how God's love causes us to keep his commandments. Look at chapter five and verse two and three. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome." Now, there's a number of things that are said here, but for the sake of time, I want to just summarize this and reinforce this great truth for you, that God's love in our hearts and lives causes us to keep His commandments. And we see this on the negative side. Human beings have a tendency to either Add to God's commandments and become legalistic or take away from God's commandments and become libertarians. This is the response that people have had for since creation, I guess. Instead of seeing God's commandments, identifying God's commandments and submitting to God's commandments. And of course, this this move is satanic to either add to God's commandments or to subtract from God's commandments is Satan's work. It's one of his devices. And we need to recognize it when people come along and do this. And it happens all the time where it happens within churches also. Let us be aware of that and let us be on guard about concerning this tactic of Satan. These two verses. are two corrections concerning keeping God's commandments. Verse two of chapter five here, we see that obeying God's commandments is actually how we love God and others. So Jesus is teaching, it's coming toward the end of his public ministry, and there is an individual who comes and he says to Jesus, what is the great commandment? And Jesus responds to this question. And Jesus says, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And then Jesus adds this. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So what Jesus is basically saying is you love God with all your heart, soul and mind by keeping the first four commandments. Of the 10 and you love your neighbor by keeping the last six commandments. And this, of course, is extremely helpful because if love is just a feeling that you have, if love is just, you know, just, you know, you know, your hair standing up on the back of your neck or a certain kind of of emotion that you feel at some point. Then there's no way to really gauge. You can just say whether you're loving or not. But but Jesus has defined that for us. And the rest of the New Testament, of course, time and again reinforces this particular understanding of of how we love both God and others. So the idea that we can ignore God and disobey his commandments, but still love his children. is faulty thinking. The two go together and they're inseparably represented and presented to us in the commandments. So obeying God's commandments is how we love God and others. And secondly, In verse 3, obeying God's commandments are not burdensome. So if Satan can't get you to add commandments to God's commandments, or get you to take away commandments from God, he will get you to think, this is too difficult, it's impossible, I cannot do it, it's burdensome. But the Bible teaches us something totally different. The word that is translated burdensome here means weighty, or heavy, or grievous. It has to do with a burden or a weight or something that is pressing down on a person with oppressive force. And of course, when Jesus preaches and He proclaims a message of hope and salvation to people in Matthew chapter 11, this is what He says to them. He says, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, who are weighted down, come to me and I will give you rest." He says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, because my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So if you and I believe the naysayers who tell us that the law of God is too hard and cannot be done, we need to respond to them with, but Jesus said, and show them that the law of God is not burdensome. It's impossible in our own strength, but God has given us, as we've seen, His love, and His love produces in our lives and causes us to obey His commandments. In fact, this is even true in the Old Testament. Psalm 119 and verse 47, the psalmist says, For I delight myself in your commandments which I love. The natural man's not going to love Commandments that are burdensome and difficult and impossible, but we love the commandments of God because God's love has been shed abroad in our hearts. We don't love them and seek to obey them in order to earn merit with God. We simply obey them because out of love to God who has saved us from our sin and from the curse of that law and has brought us into his family by taking that curse upon himself. When the Apostle Paul is struggling with this issue, In Romans chapter 7, he kind of concludes or begins his conclusion this way, I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, according to the inward man. I delight in it. So I want to conclude not by reminding you of the four effects of God's love, but just saying in application to this last effect that God's love causes us to keep His commandments. If you feel that you can't keep His commandments, you need to acknowledge that you can't keep them. You need to acknowledge that, and you need to say to God, I cannot keep Your law in my own strength, and I need a Savior. I need one who has kept the law perfectly and completely in my stead. as well as died upon the cross for me. And trust Him both providing His righteousness for you and in dying to pay the debt of your sin. Trust Him fully and completely and God's love being shed abroad in your heart in such a manner will produce in you the ability then to keep His commandments and love Him and worship Him and serve Him all the days of your life. Let us pray. It is with Thanksgiving, dear father, that we bow before you, thanking you so much for the privilege and opportunity that you've given us to worship you today. We are desperately in need of your grace, strength and help for us and ask that you would illuminate the scriptures and change us as we grow into maturity as believers. For those who may not be believers, open their eyes to see. and receive Christ Jesus the Lord as offered to them in the gospel and will give you thanks and praise. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.