We have been studying the affections or the emotions of God. And this is we're just going to finish this up, hopefully within about 15 minutes and then move into the next section. And as we've looked at this, we have explored the scriptures. And I've seen that God does indeed have and does indeed express perfect emotion And we looked at a number of these things from the word. He loves and delights in his son. He delights in justice and mercy. He rejoices in his people. There are certain things that give God pleasure. There are certain things that grieve God. He's a God who experiences anger and wrath and even detestation. He is a God of compassion and pity. All of these are emotive or affection words. All of these are words that reflect something of feeling. The last one that we're going to look at tonight is God's love. And again, I remind you of the quote from B.B. Warfield of three weeks ago. When Warfield makes the comment, he says, a God without an emotional life would be a God with all that lends... I'm sorry. Let's see. I got messed that up. A God without an emotional life would be a God who... I must have misprinted this. I'm sorry. But the bottom line is, and this is what Warfield says, and that is as much to say no God at all. And so the idea is that if God is a God of love and yet is void of feeling, then all of a sudden the concept of love is emptied of its meaning. Because love is not just charitable thoughts towards somebody. Love is engaging the heart. And we actually know this. We understand this at a human level, at an experiential level. It is inconceivable of us to say that you love somebody and yet don't have any feelings for them. And when I mentioned this a few weeks ago, I mentioned a song, either by Don Francisco or Steve Camp or somebody like that, called Love is Not a Feeling. And afterwards, and I won't tell you who it is, but afterwards one of the women came up to me and she said, my husband had that sung at our wedding, and kind of defied the whole point I was trying to make, is that if you say love isn't a feeling, love is just a commitment to doing you good or something like that, it just drains the very concept of love. And yet the Bible tells us, 1 John chapter 4 verse 8, God is love. God is love. The Bible says that God is a lot of things. God is holy, holy, holy. God is great. God is glorious. He's greatly to be praised. All of these things. But yet the Bible says God is love. In a very real sense, God is the origin, the source. the sustainer and the end of all love. Without God, there would be no love. And remember, love is rooted in the triune nature of God. The father loves the son, the son loves the father, the spirit loves the father and the son. And so there is a sense in which God himself personifies love. And in fact, is that not what the incarnation is? You could rightfully say that the incarnation was nothing less than love incarnate. And so the Bible teaches us that God is a God of love. If you take your Bibles in turn, there's three texts I want you to look at. The first is Jeremiah chapter 31. Jeremiah, chapter 31. If you start reading in verse one, it says at that time declares the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel and they shall be my people. That, of course, is covenant language, right? Anytime you have I'll be there, God, they'll be my people. That's that's the heart of covenant language. And then verse two, thus says the Lord, the people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness. Israel, when it went to find its rest, the Lord appeared to him from afar, saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, I have drawn you with loving kindness. And so what God says to his people, in fact, his people who have been disciplined, his people who have gone through the fire of judgment, as it were, he says to his people, I have loved you with an everlasting love. In other words, God says to his elect people, I have set my love upon you from all eternity. And it is because I have loved you from all eternity that, in fact, what I have done is I have drawn you with loving kindness. And so there's a there's a beautiful picture of the way that God's love works together in our life. If you belong to Christ, God set his love upon you when before the foundations of the world. And what do we call that when God set his love upon us before the foundations of the world? We call that election, right? That's the concept of being foreknown. It's being foreloved by God. And so in eternity past, God freely sets his love upon us. Nothing in God to compel him to love us. Remember Romans 9, before either one of the twins had done anything, whether good or bad, In other words, to commend themselves or disqualify themselves, God says, Jacob, I've loved Esau, I hate it. And so God freely, apart from us, totally within himself, sets his love upon us in eternity past. It is a real love. It is a love which is in Christ. And therefore, in time. He draws us. By his loving kindness. It is that love that was set upon us in eternity past that comes to fruition when he draws us to himself with covenant loyal love. And so God says very clearly from from all eternity. Now, of course, You know, I was born in 1967, but did God know me before the foundations of the world? You know, Vic was born in 1867, and God knew him before the foundations of the world, and he set his love on... And so here we exist, this is the next part really, according to God's eternal decree, We exist in the sovereign will of God. And so therefore, because God has a plan, he knows those who he's going to bring into this world. And he says, before you ever had a being, before you ever drew a breath, I set my love upon you with an everlasting love. And then in time, I drew you to myself with loving kindness. Micah, chapter seven. Micah chapter 7. I've often wanted to preach through the book of Micah just so I could get to chapter 7. Micah chapter 7 is one of those passages that is absolutely overflowing with magnificent truth. And I won't start pointing those out to you, but this is just the one passage I want us to look at. Verse 18, the last three verses of the book of Micah. Who is a God like you? Who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of his possession, he does not retain his anger forever. Because he delights in unchanging love. Now, remember, The prophet is dealing with a rebellious, recalcitrant people. He's not dealing with people who are inherently lovable, and therefore, God says he does not retain his anger forever. And there's a reason he doesn't retain his anger forever. And that is because what he really delights in is not anger, but in unchanging love. And by the way, the word there is the word Chesed. The word that we get loyal love from or loving kindness. And then verse 19, he will again have compassion on us. Here is the other emotive word. He will have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. Yes, you will cast all their sins into the depth of the sea. You give truth to Jacob and unchanging love to Abraham, which you swore to our forefathers from the days of old. This is not merely a matter of saying that God actually loves us and that love is comprised of a feeling. That's true. But this text actually takes us a step beyond that. And that is to say that God actually delights in loving us. Now, I would just I would encourage you, I challenge you just to think about the difference between saying God loves us and God delights in loving us. God doesn't doesn't take joy in his anger, but he does delight in his unchanging love for his people. This is one of those things that is so hard for us to get into our heads. I mean, a lot of times we just struggle with the fact that God does love us. We struggle with that. The longer I'm in ministry, the more I realize that more people struggle with that than I ever thought. I used to think That nine times out of 10, when you open your mouth, you had to preach threats. To make sure God's people stayed in line, the threats are in the Bible and you got to preach them if you're going to preach the whole counsel of God. But one of the things that has become increasingly clear to me is that there are more people among God's sheep who struggle with God, whether he really loves them or not, than we could ever imagine. And yet, what does the Bible say? The Bible does not just merely say, I've loved you with an everlasting love. The Bible says, I delight in loving you. It thrills my heart to set my love upon you. Now, again, that goes right back to what we saw last week and even in a sense the week before. God does not delight in loving us because we are lovely. God does not delight in loving us because we are all that lovable. God delights in loving us because the lover gets the glory. And God says there is something that thrills my heart about setting my love and affection upon you in a way that, as it were, transforms you. forgives you of your sins, is that not part of the context? He's going to do what? Trample our iniquity underfoot, and he's going to remember our sins no more, put them behind his back. And so you've got this language of forgiveness. You've got this language of God not counting our sins against us, casting all of our sins into the depth of the sea. And so you have this wonderful language. And God says, I delight to do that. It thrills my soul to forgive a sinner and to make him one of my children. Now, the way that we sometimes think about God is that he's large in justice, but small in love and compassion. And that is simply not the case. You know, there's an amazing paradox in Scripture. What does Jesus say about the way that leads to life? How is the entry? Narrow. How is the way? Straight. And the idea of straight there is not just there's no curves. The idea of straight is it's compressed. And then what does Jesus say? And few are there are they who find it, right? And so, on the one hand, you've got this idea of, okay, the gate is narrow and the way is straight that leads to life, and few are they who find it. And then, in contrast, the way that leads to destruction is broad and the entry is wide. And many are there who enter in. And so, you've got this few versus many. But yet, you know what happens when you read the book of the Revelation? How many are among the redeemed? 144,000? Way more than that. Way more is an understatement. Myriads upon myriads. And you go, what's a myriad? Well, when the Bible says myriads upon myriads, it is a figure of speech, meaning this is an innumerable number. Heaven is going to be absolutely jam-packed with forgiven sinners. Why? Because God delights to save. God delights to forgive. God delights to love people. And for some reason, that's hard for us. And that brings us to the last text. And it's a text that you see at football games and stuff all the time. People with rainbow afros. John 3.16. One time, somebody, this was years ago, we were still meeting in the middle school. Somebody had found out that we were, quote, Calvinists. And the first question they asked when they walked through the door into the auditorium there was, do you believe in John 3.16? Now, my answer is, it's in the Bible. Of course we believe in John 3.16. What are you talking about? Now, you know why they asked that, though, right? Okay. They want to make sure that you actually believed that God loved the world. Now, to be honest with you, that's an issue. Here's how I would translate John 3.16. For God loved the world in this way. Normally, by the way, when we say For God so loved the world, we usually think of the word so in terms of magnitude, okay? Like, for God so loved the world. That's true. But the Greek adverb is not an adverb of degree, it's an adverb of manner. And so it's translated, for God loved the world in this way that he gave. In other words, that's the demonstration of his love that he gave. That's the manner of his love. He gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Now, I left out just a little part. Did I leave out a part? I just said, for God loved the world in this way, that he gave his Only begotten sons whoever believes in him wouldn't perish but have everlasting life. And normally, what's the word that gets emphasized? Okay, whoever. That gets emphasized. What's the other word that gets emphasized? How about the world? Okay. Right, the world. That's the word that gets emphasized because We want to make sure that God loves everybody the same. And that's not necessarily true, is it? J.I. Packer actually put it in one of the most concise ways, and you've heard me say this before, God loves all men in some ways and some men in all ways. And so then the question is, well, what do you, you talk about election, or you talk about limited atonement, or you talk about whatever your weirdo doctrines are that make God particular, right, not universal, but particular. I would say it like this, particular, okay. How in the world do you cope with the word world? I mean, because it says, for God so loved the world, or God loved the world in this way. I guess I did get it in when I said it, right? I thought you looked puzzled, John. Anyway, John's my indicator, okay? Did I say something wrong? We know if I say something wrong, John will kind of give me the eyebrow thing. And so I'm thinking, what if I, you know, and when Don's not here, there's nobody just to blurt it out. So I got to read eyebrows, right? So you get this word world, and of course what everybody wants to do is they want to say, well, the world means absolutely everybody without exception. And then the other side, the particular side, wants to say, well, it can't mean that. And so it means, and then you have a bunch of different answers, and then of course the most unsatisfying is the world of the elect, which of course is really straining the text, right? Did it ever occur to you that in John 3.16, the statement, the declaration of God's love, is a declaration of the magnitude, the manner and the magnitude of His love? What is the world? Well, very rarely in the Bible does the word world mean the entire population of the entire history of the planet. But in the Gospel of John, the world is anti-God, God-hating, rebellious humanity, right? I mean, the world, it's used in different ways in John's Gospel. It's not just used one single solitary way. But the world has this overtone to it in John's Gospel that the world is in opposition to God. The world didn't know God. The world didn't recognize Christ. Remember, that's the juxtaposition in John 1. He came to his own. His own did not receive him. He came to this world and the world didn't recognize him. So the world is this massive humanity that is in rebellion against God and opposed to God. And the amazing thing about John 3.16 is not that John says God loves everybody, which in a sense is true. And I don't want to backtrack from that at all. The amazing thing is that John would say that it's the world that God loves. This massive humanity that is anti-God, in rebellion to God, hates God, does everything that is contrary to God, tramples his laws, follows the prince of the power of the air, the whole nine yards. The fact that God would actually love people who are a part of a world system that is in complete opposition and rebellion to God. That's the amazing thing of John 3.16. The other amazing thing is that he would love that massive humanity in such a way that he would give his only begotten son. That's the amazing thing about John 3.16. And so you can argue and bicker over whether it is absolutely inclusive of every single person who's ever lived or whatever, but the fact is that John 3.16 is a demonstration of the magnitude of the love of God, the amazing, astonishing love of God. I always get in trouble when I do this because I can never remember exactly how the song's supposed to go. But you know that song on the love of God? If the ocean... I forget exactly how the words go, but the idea is if the ocean were an inkwell and the sky were a scroll, it still would not be enough to write the love of God. That's the picture that you get of God's love in scripture. It's not this small, and I need to use a word here and then explain it because I used it and Zach freaked out. God's love is not small and niggardly. Zach asked me, Dad, what did you say today? Because I think I used that word a couple of weeks ago. And so I'd explain. That obviously, that has nothing to do with racism. The idea of niggardly is stingy, right? God's love is not stingy. It is rich. It's overflowing. The magnitude of it is absolutely astonishing. And the fact that God would love in a way that he gives his only son and the fact that God would love people who are in rebellion and hostile towards him is an absolutely amazing, mind-blowing thing. Now, here's the thing. When we start talking about the love of God, and we start talking about, well, is it universal or particular? In one sense, we have to honestly say that God really does truly, authentically love all of his rational creatures. It's God's nature to love. Now, that does not mean that God has loved all of his rational creatures in a saving, redeeming, electing love. But just to say because God doesn't do that for everybody means automatically that God doesn't love everybody, that's not true. And we should never hesitate, we should never hesitate to tell a sinner, God really does love you. If we believe the other text that we looked at, then we have to acknowledge that when an unrepentant sinner perishes, that grieves the heart of God. You know, old Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon, If you want a preacher who models preaching the love of God in a biblically faithful way, read Spurgeon. On the one hand, all of the hyper-Calvinists hated Spurgeon because they accused him of being an Arminian. All of the Arminians hated Spurgeon because they thought he was a hyper-Calvinist. The fact is, is the reason that both sides viewed him like that was because he preached the love of God and the free offer of the gospel. Yet understanding the love of God should compel us to offer the gospel freely, should it not? Should we not compel sinners to enter in and to trust in a God who would love them in such a way that he would give his son for sinners? And then you say, well, what happens if they believe? That's great. Well, what happens if they're not elect? Well, it's none of your business, right? It's absolutely none of your business. And you don't be afraid that in sharing the gospel of God's love that one of the non-elect might believe. Just preach the gospel to people, tell them about the wonderful gospel of John 3, 16, tell them about the wonderful gospel of God's love. And invite them to believe. God will take care of the rest. So here's God's love, it's overflowing, it's abounding. He delights in loving us. God's love, John Piper puts, pictures God's love like Niagara Falls that just keeps crashing and flowing and year after year, decade after decade, to the delight of honeymooners everywhere, without abating in the least, and that's what the love of God is like. It's this overflowing, abounding love that He has towards His people, that He has towards the world. You can't help but to read the Bible and to realize that God is not this static being who doesn't feel, but rather he is a dynamic personal being who possesses within himself perfect knowledge, perfect will, and perfect emotions. He loves, he hates, he rejoices, he's pleased, he's displeased, he's grieved, he's angered, he has compassion, he loves, he takes pleasure and delight. You start to think about God like that and all of a sudden the ramifications are huge. First of all, it has a direct impact on how I interact and relate to God in the course of my own relationship with Him. You know, if you've been around here for any amount of time, you know that we love theology. Theology is important. Theology is the foundation of everything that we believe and how we live. Theology is the foundation. It's the superstructure. It's the center, it's the plumb line, whatever image you want to use. Theology is vital. Without it, we are nothing. But yet you need to understand that you need to relate to God, not as a theological proposition, but as a person. If all you do is relate to God in terms of that he is a set of propositional truth statements, then you miss the reality that God is not just a static being who exists in the ether somewhere as just this propositional truth. He is a dynamic, personal being who knows what it is to love. And that should radically affect the way that we come to our Bibles. It should radically affect the way that we pray. I mean, and there's something that we need to be careful about. We don't want to recast God in our image and impose on God things that we feel and so forth. But I mean, stop and think about the way we approach God in prayer, the way that we rattle through our requests, Stop and think if one of your own children came to you in that way, with their rote requests, their rote prayers, and just rattled them off to you in an indifferent way. I mean, as a parent, how would that make you feel? It would make you feel distant. It would make you feel unloved. Stop. Just interacting with God on the basis of the way that you just think and realize that God is indeed a feeling being and what he requires of us is to interact with him at that level as well. Truth, doctrine, theology that doesn't impact the way that we feel about God isn't doing what it's supposed to do. The other implication is, as image-bearers, we have emotions as a part of our nature. Emotions are intended to be good. I would direct you to the Emotions series that we did a few years ago, 22 sermons on the emotions, just establishing the biblical fact that emotions are a part of our human nature that reflect the image of God, and so what do we need to do as as image bearers and as those who are redeemed, right? As we are regenerated. Stop and think. Jonathan Edwards put it like this. He says, true religion consists primarily in the affections. Think about that statement for a second. True religion consists primarily of the affections. Is being regenerated, being born again, is it a change of mind? Absolutely. Is it a change of will? Absolutely. But Edwards makes the case in Religious Affections, and I think he makes it convincingly, that it is primarily a change of heart. Primarily a change of how we feel. And so, do you know what that does? That puts the Christian life in perspective for us. Is it important to have your mind renewed? And the answer is yes. Is it important to have your will determined to do God's will and to be obedient? And the answer is yes. But I actually think that the core of what we are to be pursuing as Christians is to be learning to love what God loves, to rejoice what God rejoices in, to hate what God hates, to find delight in that which delights the heart of God. I dare say that you can have right thoughts, but if you don't have right affections, you'll never do the right thing. What does the will choose? The will does not simply choose what the mind thinks. The will chooses what the affections feel. We do what we do because of our affections at any given point. And so as image bearers and those who are redeemed, what is the challenge of our sanctification process? It is to have our affections aligned with the Word of God and to have our affections aligned with God himself. Could you imagine if you started to love the things that you should love and hate the things that you should hate? What would that do to the way you think? What would that do to the way that you act? What would that do to your will? It would be absolutely transforming. And a lot of times what we end up trying to do is we end up and we do this in counseling. Sometimes we do it in preaching. We do it in the Christian life. A lot of times what we try to do is we try to bend the will just on the basis of willpower. We try to transform the way the mind thinks just by the presentation of truth. That's why Edwards was so careful to say that in his preaching, you know what he sought to do? I seek to raise the affections of my hearers to the highest possible level, but only with truth. That's how we change. The last implication is this. If all that we said about God's affections are true and all that we've just said about our affections are true, then you know what that means is that worship can never only be a mental state for us. It can never just be a matter of having right thoughts about God. Must we have right thoughts about God in our worship? Absolutely. But it is those right thoughts that do what? that fuel the affections. So when we come to worship God, it is not merely a matter of the mind. There are a lot of people who have very orthodox notions of God and sing very orthodox songs about God, and yet their heart is never, ever moved. As we gather in this place, as the body of Christ, as we have our own personal devotions or family worship, The fact is, is that the goal is to engage the heart as well as the head. That's the kind of Christianity that we should want. We should never be content with a dead orthodoxy that is just satisfied with right thoughts about God and sound doctrine. We should want to have our hearts moved. And so you say, well, I'm not like that. Well, get like that. OK, I mean, there are some things that we have to get over. It's like when whenever I go on a little tirade about the importance of reading and then some guy comes up to me afterwards and says, well, you know, I just don't like to read. What are you supposed to say? Oh, that's OK. Don't read your Bible then. No, you say get over it. and start to like to read and start with God's word. And so we've got we've got all different kinds of excuses as to why we don't engage the heart in our relationship with God, especially in corporate worship, not wired that way. Or, you know, my ethnicity precludes me from from really kind of entering into that level, because I'm a I'm more of a stoic kind of guy that, you know, you present truth to me. I'm the kind of guy that very rationalistically weighs through it and makes up my mind. I'm discerning. I'm a cerebral person. OK? I'm a cerebral person. And it's because, of course, of my German heritage. I love symmetry. I love balance. I love Roman numerals and subpoints and capital alphabetic letters. And that's just the way I work. And all that's fine and good, because I just describe myself. But if you use that as an excuse for not engaging the heart, again, ask yourself, How do you think God feels about that? Do you think God really says, my heart was blessed? Because you had a really good thought about me, but didn't feel a thing for me. By the way, you understand that's why we sing. You know, that's why we sing. We could just read the words out of the hymnal, right? We could just read them. And we would have truth. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free. Very good. I like that. It's true. You could put a melody with it. And the melody and the words together are designed to do what? To move the heart. To move the heart. That's why Luther was adamant that next to theology, music is the most important thing. That's why Luther was a hymn writer. Teach truth through music, stir the heart, fill the mind. There you go. And so as we gather to worship God, it's not just a mental exercise, not just a cerebral exercise. It is an exercise that engages the head and engages the heart. And so we sing and we sing. And notice, we try not to sing what kind of songs? Untrue songs. Right? Because the affections need to be moved only by truth. So we don't sing, I feel the brush of angels wings and I see glory on each face. Some of you used to sing that. I used to sing it. Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I feel the brush of angels wings. Give me a break. Is that really true? I mean, I've been brushed with a lot of things, but I've never been brushed with angels wings. So you're just saying a lie at that point. And then I see glory on each face. Come on. You know, I mean, even the ones that lead us in worship, you know, you're like, No, I'm not talking about Vic. Because Vic's always got a grin, you know, he's the joy of the Lord. But you're like, is this a root canal or is it worship? Surely the presence of the Lord's in this place. I see glory on every face. I mean, that's not true either. So you don't sing stuff that's not true. And so a lot of the sappy, sentimental songs, you know, he walks with me and talks with me. the long life's narrow way, or worse, worse. You ask me how I know he lives. How's it go? He lives within my heart. Could you imagine the Apostle Paul getting ready to write 1 Corinthians 15? What I delivered to you as of first importance Is that which I received? Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, that he was buried and raised from the dead on the third day, according to the scriptures. And you ask me how I know he lives? He lives in my heart. You don't sing sap like that. Because I'll tell you what, if that's the only answer you have for the resurrection, you're in sad shape. Right? And so you don't sing stuff that's untrue. You also don't sing stuff that's just purposely designed to stir the emotions apart from content. Yet those are very highly popular songs. Now, let me just say something very quickly. I do not buy the idea that just because you repeat something in worship that it automatically becomes a mantra. In fact, I actually resent that. disparaging kind of remark that we hear, if you sing a song and you repeat a line more than once and it becomes a mantra, that's not true. If that's the case, then Psalm 136 is a mantra, where every other line is, His mercy endures forever. And so repetition can actually just facilitate meditation, right? But we don't sing songs that are just strictly designed to just move you, that have no content. And there are some of those. I won't go into my rant on those. Like kumbaya. It only takes a spark to get a fire going, brother. You know, you think of some of these songs, um, do Lord. I mean, some of them are terrible. You sing songs that are true. You sing songs that exalt God. And you sing them to melodies that stir the heart. Now let's pick on that for a second. Let's face it, there are some great hymns that have lousy tunes. And you're like, yeah, we sing them all the time. That's not true. But there are some, the tune is too hard to sing. What happens, what happens if all you got is minor keys and it's too hard to sing, it's too hard to follow? Are you actually being moved by the truth or are you saying How did they do that? And I'm like, you know, Vic and Ariel are the only ones that get it. No one else can follow along. And so if it's too hard or if the tune doesn't fit the song, you have something that's this robust, vibrant proclamation of truth put to a funeral dirge. Now, there are times where having minor keys and slower melodies actually are very consistent with the content of the song and can be very moving. There are other times where folk music, I'm not talking about blowing in the wind folk music, but I'm talking about, Lord, I want to be a Christian. Or, were you there? Were you there is an old Negro spiritual. Lord, I want to be a Christian is an early American tune that is probably also a Negro spiritual. There's something about the melody that's very fitting to what you're singing. But notice the way God puts these things together. And why does he do that? Not because he just likes to hear us make noise. but because He's designed us to worship Him in such a way that we engage our hearts. I used to be so grieved. There was a lady in our church and she's a wonderful lady and she's since moved and she used to say, do we have to sing today? Can't we just get to the sermon? Now, actually, I kind of liked that for at least the first time because it was a change instead of, you know, Can we just sing today and forget the sermon? But can't we just forget the singing? And I'm like, why? I don't like the singing. I finally said, you know, you're going to be so bored in heaven because there is a lot of singing. So you better get used to it now. And enjoy it now. And so what do you do if you just feel this, you're emotionally withered and dried and hear people around you and they're singing like last Sunday? I could have done that for another hour. I mean, seriously, was it soul-stirring, triumphant resurrection hymns that just, I mean, I think visitors probably would have just been overwhelmed. It's wonderful, but what do you do if your heart isn't there and it's just words? Christ the Lord is risen today. Alleluia. You do the same thing you would do for any other sin. It's a sin not to engage the heart. Read the Psalms. What is the predominant affection in worship? There's a lot of them, but there's a predominant one. You see it in the Psalms. It's joy. Right? I mean, I think joy actually gets it hands down. Are you commanded to rejoice in the Lord? Are you commanded to sing to him joyfully? So what do we usually call breaking a command? We usually call that a sin. And what do you do with a sin? You confess it and repent of it. And so if your heart is dried up and it's withered and thankfully, I've never had this this problem with with with my kids, but I've had other parents say, you know, my kid tells me I don't feel like going to church. What do I tell him? You tell him to repent. You tell him to repent. And the adults say, I don't feel like, what do I do? I mean, wouldn't it be better? This is what you get sometimes, right, John? Wouldn't it be better? I mean, if I don't, if I wake up and I don't feel like going to church, it's kind of hypocritical if I go to church and I don't feel like going to church. So it's probably better for me just to stay home. Oh, yeah. Two sins are always better than one. What am I supposed to do? Repent. Confess, God, I don't want to go to your house today. I don't want to sing your praise today. And the minute those kinds of words start coming out of your mouth and you have any notion of who God is, you start to realize that that is sin. Lord, forgive me. for not having a desire for you, for your praise, for your people, for your house. And then you go. And then you sing. You know what happens? I mean, isn't this an amazing thing? I don't, neither does John, have the luxury of not wanting to go to church. You ever think of that? I don't have the luxury of ever waking up saying, I don't want to go to church today. That doesn't happen that way, right? And what's that? Yeah. John would have five elders at his house right after service, right? So, and thankfully, I wake up on the Lord's Day morning and you know what? There is always, now there are times where I feel tired. But there's always a sense of, this is the Lord's day, to get to go to God's house, to be with God's people, and worship, and I know what the songs are going to be, and there's an excitement, right? But what do you do? Have you ever had this experience? I don't want to go, I don't want to be there, I'm not interested, my heart is cold, but I'm going to go anyway. And maybe you didn't even confess that, because it never dawned on you that that was actually a sin that should be confessed and repented of. But you go anyway, and all of a sudden, what happens when you go? You're glad that you did. Why? Because God has so arranged it that the power comes in the doing. That's why repentance is more than just changing your mind, repentance is doing and oftentimes in doing the right thing, you start to feel the right thing. And so all of a sudden you're standing there and you're singing, you know, before the throne of God above, I have a strong, a perfect plea, a great high priest whose name is love, whoever lives and pleads for me. And all of a sudden you realize that your own heart has been caught up and you're worshiping. And then it dawns on you, I didn't even want to be here today. Thank you, God. We need to take our affections, our emotions more seriously than we do. We need to realize what God requires of us. God has every right and does command our emotions. Rejoice. Grieve with those who grieve. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Be glad. And so may we pray, God, align my heart, align my heart with your word, align my heart with your heart. And as I worship you, as I walk with you, engage my heart. Yes, I want to have a renewed mind. Yes, I want to have a will that's determined to obey. But I want to see that right thoughts and right actions are the greatest joy in life. I actually want to be motivated to obey God because it makes me happy." Some of you don't even like that idea, that I should obey God because it makes me happy. For a long time you think you need to obey God because He's God. Well, that's true. You need to obey God because He's God. But what honors God more, obeying God because He's God, or obeying God because you find an ultimate happiness in obeying Him for His sake? I mean, I'm sure God looks down and says, wow, look at that obedience. They are scared to death of me. They're obeying just because I'm God. Or, that child is obeying because he so loves me that obedience is the joy of his heart. What do you think honors God more? Well, That went a little longer than it should have. Sorry about that. Let's take our Bibles and turn to Psalm 36, or I could spend the next eight minutes telling you all the other songs we should never sing. By the way, at Nevada State Prison, they took that one song, they'll know we are Christians by our love. And actually, there's a horrific verse in that song. And it's the line that will save each man's... It has to do with man's dignity and pride. Absolutely abominable song. And the guys at NSP actually scratched those words out of their songbooks and changed the words and made them very sound. And maybe that's what needs to be done with more unsingable songs. But I'll try to remember to bring those words in because they did a great job. You remember what that was, Mike? Do you remember how they did that? So after Mike's sappy influence left, they became more doctrinally sound. Yeah, it's working. I'm much nicer than I used to be. All right, Psalm 33. Verse six. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth, all their host, he gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap. He lays up the deeps and storehouses, let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke and it was done. He commanded it stood fast. The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations. He frustrates the plans of the people. The counsel of the Lord stands forever. The plans of his heart from generation to generation. As we continue to study the doctrine of God, we now get to God's eternal decree. And when we talk about God's eternal decree, you can think of it in terms of God's master plan, right? When we started to think about building a building, we gathered together, we put our heads together, and now God doesn't have to have an eraser, all right? And God doesn't have to have meeting after meeting. But what do we do? We sat down and we took information and we thought about how much space we needed here and there, and then we came up with blueprints. that actually gave a detailed drawing of every part of the building, right? And in a sense, when we talk about God's eternal decree, what we're talking about is God's master plan and His blueprint for the unfolding of His world. Now, the idea of a decree or a plan or a purpose should be a no-brainer for us. Would you build something without a purpose? Would you create something without a plan? Would you would you establish something without goals? Well, that's what we're saying when we talk about God's eternal decree is is we're saying that God has a foreordained. Predetermined plan or purpose. Which entails All things. Everything. Every microbe and every galaxy. Every molecule and every supernova. Every nation, every ant. His plan, his purpose, his decree encompasses all things. The Bible talks about the counsel of the Lord or the purpose of the Lord or the plan of God or the decree of God. The Shorter Catechism puts it like this. What are the decrees of God? The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby for his own glory he has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. Now, you need to understand that not everybody believes this. Right. I mean, there are some people who think God may be in control of some things, but not others. There may be some people who say, well, God is in control of 10 percent, but 90 percent is up for grabs. By the way, let me just tell you that if the 90 percent is up for grabs and the 10 percent is not secure. OK. And so there are a lot of people who struggle with this idea of a foreordained, predetermined plan that encompasses all things, so that you can say God has foreordained all things whatsoever comes to pass. You remember when Dave Gamble taught the Sunday School on the Divine Decree from Chapter 3 of the Confession, he used his typos on his notes as an example, right? Now, in some ways, the example is illustrative of what we're talking about, because God is in charge of everything. It's all under his control. But what we don't want to do is we don't want to trivialize it, because is it true that God decreed what shoe I would tie first? And the theological answer is Yes. Can that mentally cripple me? Yes. It could lead you to a life of barefootedness. As God decreed, I put my left shoe on first or my right shoe. Oh my goodness, maybe he's... Should I put these socks on? Well, if you did, then that was God's decree. But there's an important precaution to take when talking about God's decree. Bob Howell asked me if we were going to talk about the order of God's decrees, which is, for those of you who love big theological words that you can throw around at Starbucks. So are you a supralapsarian, a sublapsarian, or an infralapsarian? I don't know. I've not been tested for any of those. Okay, so we're not going to get into that, Bob. I'm sorry. But there's something about this idea of divine decree God's plan that all of a sudden starts to do what to us starts to make us curious. Right, I mean, let's let's face it, it starts to pique your curiosity in one hundred and one different directions. In a thousand and one different directions. God's revealed that he has a plan. Not to turn us into mental basket cases that don't know what shoe to put on first. but to comfort us with the knowledge that He's in control. I think I can tell you without fear of contradiction or correction from Scripture that in the morning just put your shoes on and don't worry about it. Right? We get so paralyzed because we start to think, and we get charley horses in our brain, and God wants us to think vigorously about Him and His ways, and God wants us to understand truth. But we need to know this, that there is no way that you can ever say everything that needs to be said about the divine decree, because it is something that exists perfectly only in the mind of God. And remember, we're finite, God is infinite. And so there's absolutely no way for us to know everything about it. Remember, you are on a need to know basis. If I'm a corporal. In the Marine Corps. I don't get to know as much. As the four star general. I'm on a need-to-know basis. Now, I may be told just enough to survive. You know what? That's a pretty good analogy for us. In fact, I would suggest to you that that's Ecclesiastes 3, 1-15. God has a plan for everything, a time, a purpose for everything that happens under heaven. Remember, when Solomon goes through and he gives this back and forth, a time to be born, a time to die, he's not just talking about the events themselves. He's really using the extremes of life, a time to laugh, a time to cry. He's using the extremes of life to communicate that God has a time and a purpose and a plan for everything that happens, every event under heaven, Solomon says. And then Solomon goes on to say, and you know what God has put in our hearts? God has put eternity in our hearts so that we actually want to know the whys. If people who are made in the image and likeness of God, we want to understand the whys. Why did this happen? If there's a time for it, if there's a purpose for it, if there's if there's a reason for it, then I want to know why. And then Solomon tells us that even though God has put eternity in our hearts. He doesn't let us know. And so there's the desire because you're made in the image of God. There's the desire because eternity is in your heart. There's the desire to know why things happen, because there is something that resonates deep within us that says things do happen for a reason. And of course, that actually simply reflects the biblical doctrine of divine decree. But most people have never even heard of divine decree, at least say, why did that happen? I know that had to happen for a reason. Don't people say that? And they want to know why and they want to know why. You know why they want to know why? Because they're made in the image and likeness of God. They have eternity in their hearts. And guess what? And God says, you know, I'm not going to tell you. He doesn't say, I'm not going to tell you to be mean. He says, I'm not going to tell you. Because his purpose is not to satisfy inquiring minds. His purpose is to get us to implicitly trust him in all things. That's why. So God has a plan, but he doesn't tell us everything there is to know about the plan. We don't know what's going to happen five minutes from now, let alone five years from now, we don't know. And in fact, the assurance of knowing that everything does have a reason doesn't actually help us figure it out. That, by the way, is is a misrepresentation of wisdom. Some people think if you have wisdom, then you get to figure out why God did what he did, and that's not wisdom. Having wisdom means that you trust God even when you can't figure it out. And so God has a divine decree, he has a plan, he has a purpose, and it's right and it's good to say that he's foreordained all things whatsoever comes to pass. But then there's another part of us that says, Lord, it is enough for me to know. That you know. People struggle with this all the time, and yet if we just simply came to the notion of, listen, God has not told us everything we need to know. We are a need-to-know basis. But whatever God does is right. And so what he says is, trust me. He doesn't say put the puzzle together. He doesn't say work the jigsaw so that you can figure out why it all happens. Believing in divine sovereignty should not compel us to say, now we get to put the jigsaw puzzle together. Believing in divine sovereignty should drive us to say, I can trust God no matter what happens in my life. We also need to realize that as we come to the issue of divine decree, we must ever keep in mind that we're not studying some cold, sterile clinical decree ordained by God. We're talking about the transcendent, infinite, eternal God. And these truths are never, ever, ever fully comprehended by us. Pastor Al Martin says, faith swims where reason can only wade. Faith swims where reason can only wade. We must approach these truths also with a sense of humility, Longing to know our God and Father better, not to simply have our curiosity satisfied. Have you ever noticed the hymn number 128? O William Cowper. Now we're going to read a hymn, but this is so next time we can more intelligently and joyfully sing it. You know about William Cowper, right? Depressed his entire life. Tried to commit suicide twice. Gets befriended by John Newton. What a friend John Newton proved to be to this melancholy, suicidal, weak person. William Cowper learned to know God in the midst of his weakness. This is what Cowper writes. He writes, God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable minds of never failing skill. He treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take. The clouds ye so much dread. Are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense. That's Calper's way of saying that you don't know everything that needs to be known and you can't know everything that can be known. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain. When will he make it plain? I can almost guarantee not while it's happening. And in fact, maybe not even in this life. And in fact, maybe only in small degrees in the life to come. But can you trust a God who is wise and holy and good and believe that He is really in charge of all things? I would submit to you tonight that you won't make it through this life unless you believe that. If you join together God's affections, God's emotions, and his eternal decree, and realize the God who is unfolding his purposes is the God who loves us, what flows out of our hearts towards this God is not distrust and suspicion, but faith and confidence and a vibrant hope that God will do all that he said he will do. You need that as an anchor for your soul and a rock for under your feet. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your Word, and we pray that these passages, Lord, even John 3.16, would overwhelm our hearts tonight. We pray that we would take special interest in what it means to be loved by you, and that our own hearts would be moved to love you in return. We pray, Father, that we would learn to trust you, even when life is inexplicable. And Father, we ask that as we enter into this section on the divine decree, that our hearts would not simply be moved with a carnal curiosity, knowing what your plans may or may not be. But Lord, may our own hearts just be filled with a confident expectation of your wisdom, your goodness and your holiness and your love. We thank you that you're in control. We thank you that the devil's not in charge. And we especially thank you that we're not in charge. Lord, we pray that we would learn to have genuine gratitude when we come to realize that we're not the ones in control. We bless and praise your holy name. You are our sovereign, eternal, loving king. In Jesus name. Amen.