Thank you all so much for the invitation to come and be with you. I was talking about those folks' electricity being out. I remember when I was a kid that used to happen to us quite often. Everybody else in the neighborhood would have electricity and we wouldn't have any. We didn't pay the bill. They turned the electric off. You're the only one that doesn't have it. You stole them and sold them. That's what it was. It's good to be here. I think a lot of you are pastoring. I was here at this church about 40 years ago. You all look like you're too young to have remembered that. I remember the old building and I came down here with somebody else to attend the conference and somebody canceled and they asked me to preach and I never forgot a fellow preached the message on don't be a striker. He preached against unions as hard as he could for the whole 30 minutes. I want you to turn your Bibles to the 10th chapter of the Gospel of John. I consider it a great honor when anybody invites me to preach. It's a great privilege. It shouldn't be taken lightly. I trifle very little with men who do take it lightly. I want to speak to you, and I'm just going to read this one verse. I'll pick the rest of it up when I need to. In the 17th verse of John chapter 10, let me read verse 14. The Lord says, I'm the good shepherd, and I know my sheep, and I'm known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice. And there shall be one fold and one shepherd. Therefore, whenever you see therefore in the Bible, always go back and read what is before it because it tells you what is therefore. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." I want to speak to you from the 17th verse. And the title of my message is this, A Great Cause for Love. My father was a very harsh man. He was an unemotional man. The only kind of emotion he had was to get mad. Usually get mad and hit me or my sisters or whatever he could find. And when my father died at age 86, I had never ever heard him say to me or to either of my sisters, I love you. Never. And that coldness that my father expressed affected me most of my life. When God saved me, I was an atheist. And I had, I worked very hard. It made me strive as hard as I could at everything I did to try to be successful. I thought if I could just be successful in the way the world measures success, that maybe it might make my father love me. But after God saved me, I learned about a love that's so wonderful. A love that God had for Christ and Christ had for me. And I want to speak to you tonight about this great cause for love. First of all, the Father loved Christ for His death and resurrection. He tells us here in this passage, Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. This love was exceedingly sweet to the Lord Jesus Himself. He loved His Father. He loved His people. They had a circle of love about them. And to be well-pleasing to His Father was everything to Christ. We live in a day and time when children are not raised to love their parents. Children are raised, they are the bosses and the parents are just slaves to give them what they want and do what they want to do and make them happy in the world's terms. But Jesus lived and dwelt in this earth to do everything he could because he loved his father. This love of the Father ought to be our constant comfort. It ought to be our strength in this world. It ought to be our hope and our joy. Our hearts ought to sing constantly about Him. I woke up this morning about a quarter to five and I got to thinking about that hymn that is one of my favorite hymns. You know, He is so faithful. He is great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father. The Father also took great delight in the Son, because the Son laid down His life. Because of the delight of Jesus Christ in His Father's perfect plan. Our God has a perfect plan. He planned it before the world began. He instituted it before the world began. Before the first molecule of dust was ever created in the universe, God had chosen a people and given them to Christ, and Christ had committed to die for them. He loved the Father's perfect plan. The chosen people were a race of people who had tasted of the fruit of sin, but they were chosen in the character of God. It was essential that God and man be joined in perfect harmony. Perfect harmony not in themselves, perfect harmony just not wishful thinking, but perfect harmony in the Lord Jesus Christ to complete the plan of grace. Christ took upon Himself the sin debt of His covenant people. I want you to know that. I think you know that, but it's good we get reminded of that. That the Lord Jesus Christ took upon His head every sin I've ever committed, even the ones I don't know about, ever will commit, ever have committed, and am committing. He took them all. He took all of them. It was the Son's highest pleasure to become submissive to the divine plan of redemption. for all of His chosen people. It was a simple plan. God's plans are simple. They're simple because they're made by a great mind who's in control of all things and He doesn't need to do all the complications and jump through all the hoops that we do to fulfill our plans. He just chooses to do something and He does it. He just does it. He was so intent on His Father's business that even when he was a small child in this world, he went up to the temple to honor God and to discuss or debate or argue. I don't know what he did. I think he probably taught him something. Those men, those priests there in the pulpit, and his parents came looking for him, and he said unto them, How is it that you sought me? Don't you know? I've got to be about my Father's business. May God help every one of us to be about our Father's business. The Father loved Him. He loved Him for the perseverance of His life's work. Christ was born into that manger as a baby. And He died on that cross and was buried in that tomb. And that's all most people know about Him. That's all He is. A baby in a manger and a dead man on a cross. But He's a lot more than that. Every moment of His life, every breath that He breathed, every word that He spoke, every deed that He did was all in perfect compliance to the Father's will. He never altered his state or his activities in their behalf. Redemption could not be accomplished except by the substitute who bore this penalty and the dying of unjust men and women before God that they might be saved. We also ought to consider this great father, a father who loves his son, You know, a lot of young boys get killed in the war. And then they get killed in other reasons too. And fathers are often times angry at the army or angry at the situation. That their son may have died for some cause they believed in, but they're angry that their son is gone. But the father was pleased. He was pleased. His son died. He laid down His life without debate. He laid down His life without question. The chief source of this love was death in perfect obedience. I look at that cross just empty. That's all it needs to be. Just empty. Christ fails not. He endures to the end and He gives up the ghost. I like that passage. I heard a fellow reading it the other day on the radio and I thought, you don't have any idea what you're reading. The Lord gave up the ghost. Who else gave up the ghost? Do you have any idea how many millions and billions of people have lived in the world since God created Adam? There's never been a single solitary one who gave up the ghost except Christ. He was very careful to obey every scripture, not only in his life, but especially so in his death. John 19.30 says, when Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, they offered him something earlier and he wouldn't take it. But he took that because it was appointed that he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Wow. The death of Christ was also a vindication of God's law. Now I see you folks have the Ten Commandments up here, and that's fine. I think people, it's good that we remember those things, but I'll tell you something. Nobody ever kept them. Nobody ever kept them. The Ten Commandments is like a chain with ten links in it. You're hanging off the end of a cliff and you're hanging on the end link. I've got news for you. It doesn't make any difference whether the one you're holding on to breaks or the one up the top breaks. It still falls and all of them always break. They break because we break them. And then the Father's acceptance of us is on the basis of His abundant love for His Son. Not only did the Son love the Father, But the Father loved the Son. The Father loves the Son so much that it overflows and covers all of us whom Christ has taken to be His own. You ever catch an old stray dog around your house? I was coming down here today I saw a fellow over to the left and it was a dog enforcement officer, or what they call an animal control officer. He had a rope on a stick and there was a little dog over and he was trying to catch that little dog. I thought to myself, if I had the power to, I'd stop and throw a blanket over that little dog and take him on down the road and let him loose and at least give him a chance. But you know the Lord Jesus Christ, when He died on the cross, He put a blanket over Himself and every one of His elect. And he covered us. And the father said, that's my son, whom I'm well pleased. He's placed all of Christ's works in our hands. You want to witness to people? Just go ask them how they expect to meet God. They start telling you something about what they've done, or they're going to do, or they hope to do, you can figure out you've got a lost one there, you better talk to them. They don't know what they're talking about because the people of God, men and women whose hearts have been changed and their souls have been changed, and they've been swayed by the power of the Spirit of God, they'll tell you that the Lord Jesus has done something for them. He's done something for them. Christ is so glorified the Father that His efforts redound to our benefit. They didn't benefit Him, they benefited us. This sacred light is so powerful, so powerful, that it banishes all the darkness. The darkness of our nature, the darkness of our attitudes, the darkness of our conduct, and makes us welcome in God's house. God accepts us in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. All our flaws, All our imperfections are covered in His perfect righteousness. I've known Brother Jackson for a long, long time. And I bet y'all would really like me to tell you about some of his exploits. But I ain't telling you one. Because he knows just as many on me. But I'll tell you something. His Master and my Master have covered all our sins. The Father looks at us and all He sees is His Son. He doesn't see anything else. I was at my sister's house the other day. There were two or three little boys running in and out. I told her, why in the world do you put up them boys running in and out like that? I'd scan their behinds and send them out in the yard. I said, oh, they're Levi's. That's her grandson. They're Levi's friends. And so I put up with them for Levi's sake. I want you to know something. God Almighty is only going to put up with you because of Jesus. We need to remember the innumerable amount of sins that we have committed. And He's covered. He's done more than cleanse our sins. He's made them who are sinners to be recipients of God's most abundant blessings. I'm getting to be an old man. And there's a lot of pages falling off the calendar. And I think a lot more now about the blessings of God that I've experienced and that I've yet to experience than I ever have before. And it must be a wonderful place. My wife died a couple of years ago, and I wake up all the time thinking about her. I'm wondering what you're doing. My brother-in-law died three weeks ago. My sister and I were talking last week, and I said, I wonder what those two rascals are up to. She said, there isn't any telling, but I said, it's probably a good thing. You know, God so loves the Lord Jesus Christ that because He loves Him, He gives eternal life to all of the elect. I was an atheist. I mocked His name. I scoffed at it. I laughed at preachers. I used to throw them out the door when they'd come to my house. And I said, God, how could you save me? He said, for my son's sake. Therefore, does my Father love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again? Oh, I wonder if you could measure, just try to imagine how those great torrents of the love of God that are ours because of Him. I love that passage in Ephesians 1, 6, where Paul says we're accepted in the Beloved. I've got it carved on my tombstone. When I've been dead for a hundred years, if Christ's tears is coming, I want people to walk by and say, I don't know who that fellow is, but he's accepted in somebody's Beloved. And then we must remember our love for the Lord Jesus on this account. His death is the great reason why we love the Lord Jesus Christ. Some people love Him because He can turn bluegills and biscuits into a meal for 5,000 or 15,000 people. Some people love Him because He can make a widow's dead son live. I'll tell you why I love Him. Because He's made me holy. He's made me holy. We love Him because He first loved us and gave Himself for us. Our Lord's love is connected to His role as a good shepherd. I love to think about the good shepherd. The Bible is full of sheep stories. Full of shepherd stories. Good shepherds and bad shepherds, but there is only one great shepherd. Our Lord would not rest until He laid down His life for the sheep. I can remember my grandfather, he'd go out, it might be dark, he'd go out with an old coal oil lamp looking for one lamb that had got separated from the flock. That's what a shepherd does. That's what Christ does. We're straying sheep, but we're loved sheep. We're loved sheep. And He never abandons us and He never leaves us alone. To find our way home, He comes and finds us. The Lord laid down His life voluntarily. I hear a foolish preacher every once in a while talk about how God was distraught about all these poor lost sinners. He didn't know what He was going to do. Law had failed and man had failed and he didn't know what to do. Finally, he just in desperation, he just turned to Jesus and said, Do you know anything we can do? And then Jesus said, Well, I don't know anything else. I can go down there and die for them. I don't really want to, but I guess I could if I had to. And he finally talked him into it and he went down and did it. And they were so happy about that. I'll tell you what, I'm happy because he came down here and just came. Just came. Just came. Lived for me. Died for me. Rose again. Gives me life. He went to the slaughter, enduring its agony to the fullest degree. He cried out, my God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? And yet He bore it all. How tender this love becomes when we view it personally. I tell you, we read the Bible too fast sometimes. He loves me. I don't know if He loves you, but He loves me. And that's enough reason for me to praise Him. If I'm the only one here He loves, I'll still praise Him for that. Love delights in personal pronouns. It does. And my Beloved is mine. And I am His. And I will be forever. Atonement could never have been attained by anything less than His giving of. There is no limit to His sacrifice. There is no limit to its effect. There is one more thing I want you to see here. We ought to rejoice, not only in the Lord, and rejoice in the Father's love for Him. We ought to rejoice in the fellowship that we have with the Father in the atoning death of Jesus Christ. He said, therefore does my Father love me? Because I have laid down my life that I might take it again. The Father loves the Son. And you who are His people, you love Him too. In this we're in harmony with the great God of heaven. The great God with whom we once were in total enmity. Now we're in perfect harmony with Him. We all love His Son. We love Him for the very same reasons as the Father does. Our hearts are joined with His in love for the Savior's accomplished purpose. Both God and sinners look on Christ. That's all together. I've tried to think about what that means. And I think about it for a while, my head gets hurt and I have to give up. But He's altogether lovely. Altogether lovely. This love gives us an intense desire to imitate and become like Christ. I get up every morning, Lord I failed so much yesterday. God give you the grace to live for your glory and to live for Christ today. He's predestinated us, the Bible says, to be conformed to His image. That's the best thing about heaven. A lady called me up last week and she wanted me to explain to her about these gates of pearls. She said, you know, pearls are little bitty things. They talk about these gates of pearls. What about those walls of jasper, she said, and those streets of gold? I said, you know what? I'm going to give you a piece of simple advice. Why don't you forget about all that stuff? And think about the one that sits at the Father's right hand. He's the glory of heaven. There's not a single saint in heaven walking around saying, man, look at those gates of pearl. My sister, my wife, and my brother-in-law aren't looking at that. Man, look at those walls of jasper. Look at those streets of gold. They say He's wonderful. He's wonderful. He's wonderful. He is the King of Kings. The Father surely loved sinners. You know how much God loves you? Do you? I'm not sure, but I do know this. He loved you enough to give His Son to die for you. Abraham loved Isaac. I love that story. He tells a little sermon. He said, you boys wait here. We're going up on that mountain. And we're going to sacrifice. We'll be back. We'll be back. He got up there and Isaac said, Father, here's the wood. Here's the fire. Where's the lamb? He said, don't worry about it. God will provide the lamb. You know what? God provided the lamb. And when it came time, God provided the lamb. That's why he loved his son. God not only bound Christ to the cross, but He offered Him as a perfect substitute. A perfect substitute for every sin of the elect. Every sin since you were a little boy or a little girl. Every sin until you're an old man or an old woman. Every sin until the day you die. He paid for them all. How marvelous is the love of the Father and the love of the Son for His people. What more could we want? What more could we seek than this blessed love? You know, there's no greater commentary that I know of about this than some of the old hymns. I want to close tonight by reading you a couple of verses of an old hymn written by a man named William Williams. I wouldn't want a name like that. That would confuse me, but William Williams wrote a lot of hymns. Here's one he wrote. To thee, my God, my Savior, praise be forever new. that people come to praise Thee in numbers like the dew. Oh, that in every meadow the grass were harps of gold to sing to Him for coming to ransom host untold. How many folks are in heaven tonight, do you think? A few thousand? A few million? A few billion? I don't know. But I do know this, that everyone who's there is there because of what Christ did. And they're there because Christ loved the Father, and the Father loved Christ. And as a consequence, we love them too. May the Lord bless you. Thank you.