00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
We're going to look at a subject
which is always encouraging to the Church of God is we love
him, Christ, because he first loved us. In times like these,
I think we need to dwell upon his love because that builds
our assurance. We sung that hymn, Blessed Assurance.
And the word of God says, perfect love casts out all fear. I think
the more the Holy Spirit reveals to us individually the love of
Christ, the love of God, the more fear will go out of our
lives and we'll have more trust and more confidence in God. The
lack of trust is unbelief and the lack of unbelief causes us
to doubt and distrust God. And that's where Satan's always
trying to bring trials into our lives to get us our eyes off
Christ and get them on ourselves and get them on our problems
that we start doubting the faithfulness of God as we sang that song this
morning, greatest faithfulness. In Romans chapter 5 verse 8 it
says, But God commendeth his love toward us, that when we
were yet sinners Christ died for us. And it says in verse
5, Hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. One of
the ministries of the Holy Spirit is to shed abroad the love of
God into our hearts and to manifest Christ to us. Jesus said in his
earthly ministry that the Holy Spirit would take the things
of Christ and reveal them unto us. Each one of us need that
in our lives. And we're going to look at some
verses. The one that we're going to base
our text on is 1 John 4, 19. Most of you are familiar with
that. We love him because he first loved us. There is no loving
God if God doesn't love us. We cannot love him. He is the
one who moves upon us, sheds the love of God abroad in our
hearts. Because of that blessing, then we have love to God and
we turn to God. As we think about the love of
God and we look at the love of God, it's not just a theological
doctrine. We can see it. It's something
that God has revealed to you and I. For God so loved the world,
He gave. Love has to be seen in action.
I can say I love someone and they can say they love me, but
if it's never demonstrated in our practical life, it has no
meaning. It has to be demonstrated. You
know, that's the thing about it. Sacrifice. Love involves
sacrificing. How do we know that as parents?
How often have we had to sacrifice for our children? because we
love them. We may not say it arborally and
verbally all the time, but the children can see our love because
of the sacrifices we make for our children. How many parents
have not bought them their own personal clothing because they
Times are hard and they buy clothing for their grandchildren. They
buy things for their children. They sacrifice their own needs
and they meet the needs of their grandchildren and the needs of
their children. And the sad thing about that is sometimes our children
don't see that love. They just take it for granted.
But how many times as a young person we should look back, think
about our parents, think about how many times they sacrificed
for you and I. And this brings us down to, Jesus'
prayer in John 17, verse 9. He says, I pray for them. I pray
not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me, for
they are Thine. For you know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes
He became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich. For
your sakes He became poor. What a blessing that is to think
about. He gave up the glories of heaven in a sense, and left
that and came to earth and became incarnated in human flesh so
that He could redeem His people from their sins. That's love
seen in action. That's love seen in action. How
do we know that God the Father loves us? Because He gave His
only begotten Son on our behalf. Peter says in 1 Peter 1.7 that
the trial of your faith, and beloved, that's what we're all
going through right now. Whether you're a young person, whether
you're middle age, or whether you're getting up in Roger's
age, in my age, and others who are older than we are, it's a
trial of faith. The Christian life could be called
the trial of faith. Because every one of us, there's
no exemptions, as believers we'll go through the trial of faith.
How do you know what you are? How do you know how strong you
are? How do you know whether you're spiritual or carnal? How
do you know whether you're really serious with God? The trials
of our faith brings that out. When God sends a trial into our
lives and it knocks us off our feet and we lay on our back and
we make the wrong decision because we're not looking to God, then
we realize, I'm not as spiritual as I thought I was. And every
one of us can be caught in a weak moment. And we have to be so
careful. That's why Paul said, let him
that thinketh he stand take heed lest he fall. All of us have
to be on our guard because of the depravity of our nature. He goes on to say in this verse
that the trial of your faith being much more precious than
of gold that perish. Though it be tried with fire,
it might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing
of Jesus Christ." That is what we're looking for. Why should
we be faithful through these trials? Because it will bring
glory and honor at the coming of Jesus Christ if we're alive
at His Second Coming. It brings honor and glory to
God. How we go through these trials. Whom having not seen,
ye love. Now this is what we're coming
down to. Love is the key thought today, is love. Whom having not
seen. Can we love someone we've never
seen? Yes, we can. And the love is seen by what?
By our commitment to Him. Our commitment. When two people
get married and they make a commitment, they make a covenant together
to bond together for life. And I believe every person comes
to the point of getting married, it should be in their mind, this
is for life, a commitment for life until death do us part. You don't enter an engagement,
a marriage covenant and say, well, if it don't work in six
months, we'll get a divorce. It should be a commitment for life.
This was God's purpose and plan from the beginning. One man and
one woman until death do us part. That is God's perfect pattern.
So we think about Christ and His love for you and I and the
church, whom we love, though we see Him not yet we love Him. And whom though now you see Him
not yet believing, you rejoice in the unspeakable joy, unspeakable
and full of glory. Believing is associated with
love. If you don't believe, you can't
know the love of God. Believing lays hold of love.
Believing trusts God. Believing is how we experience
all the things in our Christian life. Believing is an evidence
of what? Faith. The just shall walk by
faith. Or the just shall live by faith
upon God. One of the first things we see
is God's love, as I read earlier. But God commended His love toward
us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
He didn't look down through time and say, well, this person's
a pretty good guy. I'm going to die for that person. Well,
this one's a pretty good person here. I'm going to die. He said,
no. He died for us while we were yet what? Sinners. Sinners. Depraved, ungodly, wicked, hell-deserving
sinners. That takes away any glorying
in ourselves. Any glorying in ourselves. God's
love to undeserving sinners. And as we think about the love
of God, As I said earlier, the Holy Spirit sheds abroad the
love of God into our hearts. It says also, He maketh intercessions
for us in Romans 8.26. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmities. And whether we want to confess
it or not, we do have them. Yes, Brother Roach has many infirmities.
Yes, Brother Roger. Yes, Brother Mark. Yes, Brother
Bill. Brother Dave. All the men in
the church will be the first. We'll leave our ladies out of
it. We have many infirmities. We covet your prayers. But the
great blessing here, the Holy Spirit helpeth our infirmities,
our weaknesses, for we know not what we should pray for as we
ought. Now that tells me that most of us don't even know how
to pray spiritually. But the Spirit Himself maketh
intercessions for us with growing which cannot be uttered. And
I believe what that verse is teaching, that the Holy Spirit
reveals to us and leads our minds and thoughts to pray according
to the will of God. We need to confess our ignorance.
Lord, I don't know how to pray. Please teach me to pray to the
Holy Spirit. Reveal to me. what is thy will and what is
not thy will. We don't have to pray, should
I go out here and shoot someone? Because it's not the will of
God, thou shalt not kill. We know what God's will is. When
God commands something, we don't have to pray about it. We don't have to pray about,
should I go out here and rob the First National Bank? Because
why? God said, thou shalt not steal.
There are certain things we can pray about and certain things
we don't pray about. Like young people. The Word of God says,
be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. You don't have
to pray about it if you're a believer, should you marry an unbeliever.
God's already spoken on the subject. Now, I know we don't like to
face reality. See, this is where we get in
danger. But I love this individual. What's that got to do with it?
God said, thou shalt not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
He didn't say, I don't care how you feel. It doesn't matter how
you feel. It doesn't matter what your emotions
are. If you disobey that rule, you will suffer as an unbeliever. Believe me. God is true to His
Word. If you marry an unbeliever, if
you marry someone who serves Satan and who loves the world
and things of the world, and you love Christ, you're asking
for trouble. There's so many young people
could stand up or marriage people years later who could give testimony
to that problem. Marrying outside of the will
of God, in the sense, his revealed will. God has a revealed will,
and that's what we go by. Well, I don't know what the secret
will of God is. No, you never know. But you know what God's
revealed will is. Be not unequally yoked together. So there's so many things the
Spirit can lead us. And this is the danger of Bible
studies. We read the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit convicts
us. We reject that. We reject it. No. That's not
for me. I'm not going to follow. I'm
going to do what I want to do. And that's where Christ, the
great Teacher, taught us we must deny ourselves. Isn't that difficult? It is for me. Self-denial. And that word, deny, means abandon. Totally abandon yourself. And
God's will is your only will. God's guidance is your only guidance. And that is where most of us
have our problem. Submitting our wills to God's will. If God be for us. That's really
encouraging. Romans 8.31. What should we say
to these things? If God be for us. Who can be
against us? Ultimately, no one can defeat
God's people. That verse is not saying that
we won't be tried. That verse is not saying that
Satan won't come against us, because it says in Ephesians
6, against, against, against, against, against five different
times. Yes, there is enemies against
us. But ultimately, they cannot overthrow God and destroy us.
Thank God for that. Then we think of God's love for
us and delivering up Christ for us. In the same chapter, Romans
8.32, He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
how shall He not with Him freely give us all things? To me, that's
one of the greatest verses to encourage us to pray. If God
gave His own Son and delivered Him up on our behalf, What is
your daily needs compared to that? What are they? We need bread. What is bread
compared to the living bread of the Lord Jesus Christ? We
need water to maintain our health. What is that to the living water
that Christ gives us? The liberty of up. Now this is
what we need to dwell on. God's love for you and I. Now is this personal or is this
just a doctrine to you? A lot of people hear this truth
and it has no more effect on them than hearing about the baseball
game. It's just something they hear
and it has no effect on their lives personally. Some people
will get more upset about a baseball game than do God because they'll
get upset and moan and groan because their team lost a game. How many people get upset about
God being offended? Oh, beloved. We think about Christ's love
for you and I. He's interceding for us. I try to remember as
many here as I can in my prayer time. It could be in the morning
when I wake up laying in the bed. It could be at night. It
could be during the day. But there is one who prays for us,
who is the great intercessor of the church, Jesus Christ.
He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all.
How shall ye not with him free to give us all things? And who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of
God, who also maketh intercessions for us. I would say if it wasn't
for Christ making intercessions for us, we wouldn't make it in
our Christian walk. Have you wondered why You haven't quit
serving God? Some are falling by the wayside.
I believe that in the last days when the test will come, the
sheep and the goats will be separated. The wheat and the tares will
be separated. Especially when Christ comes
in His second coming. But I believe we'll see it before
then. We'll see those who really are His sheep will be those who
will endure to the end. We see a lot of people falling
by the way, because they're professors and not possessors. They profess
to be Christ, but they don't possess Jesus Christ. As He told
the disciples, will you also go away? The same thing could
be said to you and I. Will we go away when times get
hard? When things in America become
to the point where they start persecuting Christians? Putting
ministers in jail because of what they preached, the word
of the living God, calling it a hate book. That day could come
in America that we as servants of God may be arrested and put
in prison because we preach the truth of the living God. How
many will stand true during that time? I say only by the grace
of God, I pray that we do. Be like the Apostle Paul who
didn't count his live deer unto him. Christ loved us and became
our sacrifice, our Passover. 1 Corinthians 5 says, "...Purge
ye therefore the old leaven that ye may be a new lot, as ye are
unleavened for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us."
You know, in the coming of the Lord, when the death angel came
through Egypt, all the firstborn died if they didn't have the
blood over the post. And if the blood is not over
you and I, We will die in our trespasses and sins. It's the
blood. It's the blood that makes atonement. You need to thank God and I need
to thank God for the great sacrifice of our Passover lamb, Jesus Christ. You know, we read these things
and sometimes, you know, it doesn't really get a hold of our heart.
And I know sometimes we can't work it up. But we need to meditate
more. I believe this is where the old
writers used to meditate and talk about meditation. You meditate
on something until it becomes part of you. We need to meditate
on these truths until they get a hold of our heart. Pray for
the Spirit to make them a real, until they draw our passion. It says, one of the verses I
had on my mind this morning was also, the love of Christ constrains
us. That's why this is so important
to study the love of God to us. is because it constrains us.
It constrains us. It's like Brother Mark and I.
I wouldn't want to do anything to affect our fellowship as brothers
in Christ. And we should feel that same
way when it comes to the Lord. We shouldn't want to do anything
that would offend our Lord and Master. We want to serve the
Lord and we want to show our love to one another as brothers
and sisters in Christ. And as the church of God, we
need that today. I think one of the greatest needs
in our church, I understood this out, is our real love and affection
shown to each other in a practical, biblical sense. More than just,
oh brother, you know, it's easy to shake somebody's hand. But
we need to pray for the Holy Spirit. Lord, teach me to love
Brother Mark. And I'm talking about me personally.
Teach me to love Brother Roger. Teach me to love Brother Bill
and to each one that's here, to love one another. I believe
until the church of the living God comes to the point where
they can love each other, we will never grow as a church. Never. Because love is the foundation
of God's people, because the love of God is set abroad in
our hearts. And this is one element. And I'll say this. Well, I won't get into that,
that's the sermon I'm working on. But the thought is, if you
have that true love being manifested, everything else will fall in
place. And the reason we don't have all the other things is
because we're not really filled with the love of God as we should.
To God's first. and to each other. I'm sure Mark
will be dealing with this in the future. Christ brought it
before him. He said, I've done this. When
did we say you were sick, Lord? Or when did we say you were in
prison? When did we say you were hungry? And he said, the least
of my brethren, you've done it unto me. Are we practicing that
practical truth in our daily lives? Who are we helping? You
can look back at this last week and say, who did I help? The
week before that, who did I help? And then we say we love God.
God says, I don't want to hear it. If you can't help and love
your brethren, don't come saying you love me. And that's to all
of us. We all have to have to receive
that responsibility. It's our responsibility as Mount
Zion church that we love one another. In a practical sense,
not just on Sunday morning, we shake hands. We don't see each
other again until next Thursday night or the next Sunday. It
needs to be in a practical living sense. Are we burdened for the
needs of each other? When Mark was going through a
particular trial, picking on Mark this morning, I was real burdened
for Mark. And I was praying for him, praying
that God would provide an answer to his prayer in a certain area.
And God did. Someone came along that could
fix the problem. They fixed the problem. And he's
at peace about it now. But that's how we should be.
We should be touched with the feelings of our brothers and
sisters in Christ and pray one for another. Be concerned one
for another. Sister Parker's health. We should be concerned
for Sister Parker when she can't breathe and she's having these
problems. And Sister Sandy and others in
the church who have physical problems. My mother, Sister Lorraine.
We should be burdened for them. See, that's the union and fellowship
we need as a church, that we're concerned, so concerned for each
other. It brings out prayers in our lives. It brings out to
the point we want to contact them and see what's wrong. What
can we do to help? Beloved, true Christianity has to be seen.
If it's not seen, one of the epistles says, don't love just
in word only. And it's easy to do that, just
through love and word only. I'm trying to make this more
practical today as a church in Mount Zion that we realize our
responsibility, not only to the members, but our visitors, like
Jeremiah and his wife, and Jackson, and Jay, and Jody and his family,
and Terri and her girls. We need to show love to our members
and to our young people who are not members. I'll say yet. I'm
praying for them too. We're praying for those and for
our visitors to be part of Mount Zion. And if we didn't pray that,
there'd be something wrong with us. Next thing, we see that Christ
has made a curse for us. Galatians 3.13 says, Christ hath
redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for
us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a
tree. There you see Christ on Calvary
between two thieves being the cursed of God. And he was. Christ was the cursed of God,
not because of his sins, but because of our sins. No older
than Matthew and Carl are at their young age. They have enough
sins in their life already to condemn them into eternal damnation. When I was a young person, I
had enough seen already in my life that we're born depraved.
We're born sinners. We're born under condemnation.
We don't have to commit those things to become under wrath.
We are born under wrath of God. Because in Adam, we all fail
and fall short of the glory of God. Now, I'll say this, that I believe
we're under the wrath of God in Adam, but we're under righteousness
in our head, Jesus Christ, the Lord. That seemed like a contradiction. How can he be under one and both
at the same time? But we are because there's two
representatives. We have a earthly race representative, which is
Adam, and we have our spiritual representative, which is the
Lord Jesus Christ. And who comes first? Christ does. He set up from everlasting. He
is first, even before Adam ever had a being. So Christ was our
curse. How many sins have we committed
this week? I'm not asking you to raise your hand, but we all
know. It can be thoughts. It can be just disobedience.
It can be many things. As you think about your sins,
bring us personally to home. That's why Christ was made a
curse. My sins, my sin, I have to make it personally, is why
my Savior was cursed upon the tree. He had no sins. That should make us love Him
more and more. He gave Himself for us, willingly. Paul said in Ephesians 5, 2,
"...and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given
Himself for us an offering." He gave Himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling Savior. And if we love God, we're to
love our brothers the same way. We're to give ourselves on the
behalf of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We're to love one
another. Willing to give a sacrifice. Do you know what it costs to
do anything today? How many has got 4, 5, 20, 30
hours a week to spare? Not many. Most of you, when you
come home from work, you're wore out. You're ready to drop. So
to go beyond the physical need and say, OK, tonight I'm going
to visit my brother or sister in the Lord and encourage them. I'm tired physically, but their
need is greater than my rest. And that's having a burden for
those you love as Christians. Now again, it's easy to say it. It's easy to think it, but it
takes sacrifice to do it. Now, anytime I think about sacrifice,
it reminds me of, I know I've said this many times, but it
reminds me of the pig and the chicken. There was a sign up
there, ham and eggs, and the chicken said, well, that's not
too bad. And the pig looked over to the chicken and said, yes,
for you it's an offering, but for me it's a sacrifice. And
we have to think about sacrificing sometimes. Does it cost us anything
to serve God? If we're not sacrificing in our
lives time in prayer, time in reading the Scriptures, time
in helping our fellow believers, time in helping those around
us, time in ministering to others, then we are not denying ourselves. Trouble today that we're all
centered upon ourselves. Me, myself, and I. Which has
become selfishness. It's what concerns me. It's what
concerns myself. It's what concerns I. And the greatest hindrance to
a strong relationship, even with young people who are dating and
courting and thinking about the future and maybe marriage, you
must realize that if you're always centering around yourself, you
can never build a strong relationship. You've got to forget about yourself
and love the object of your life, the one that you're going with
or praying about, no matter what it is. And same thing with you
and I. If I'm just thinking about what
can the church do for me, Leroy, and never think what can I do
for the church? I'm self-centered. I'm just thinking
about myself. I need to be thinking about what
can I do for my church? What do they need from me? What
can I do financially? What can I do physically? What
can I do in my prayer life? What can I do to contact them,
to phone them, to visit? What can I do to help believers
in the local congregation? That is important. And when God
says, how dwelleth the love of God in you when you can't love
one another? It's a big question. We should
think about that. And because of His being made
a curse for us, He delivered us from the wrath to come. 1
Thessalonians 1.9 says, For they themselves show of us what manner
of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned from God, from
idols, to serve the true and living God, and to wait for His
Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who
delivered us from the wrath to come. Delivered us from the wrath
of God to come. How often have you thought about
that? The coming of God brings judgment. You will call Him as King of
kings and Lord of lords. And He would judge this world
in righteousness. And the only thing that would
separate you and I from eternal wrath is Jesus bore our sins
in His body on the tree. Yes, it's important. Are you
a believer? Are you a believer? And if you
are a believer, it should be manifested in your life. And
I've said this before and I'll say it again. If you are a believer,
it's your responsibility as a believer to follow Jesus Christ in baptism
and join the local church. That is your responsibility as
believers. And the more you reject that,
God will continue dealing with you. Because His children, one
of the first evidences of being a child of God, is being baptized,
I do believe. And having a heart to join the
Lord's church. Why people think that is such
a bad thing, I've never understood. It's a blessing. It's an honor.
It's something that Jesus purchased. This is not our church. It's
His church. I will build my church. And the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The Lord added to
His church. Added to the church. And if the
Lord has burdened your heart to join the church, beloved,
put Satan aside and follow the Lord. Be baptized and join the
church. Quit halting between two opinions. Jesus said, the hour cometh when
no man can work. Beloved, to stand before Jesus
being obedient to the best of your ability, the best of your
life, being obedient to Christ because you're obeying Christ,
not Zion. You're obeying the Lord and Master. He says, follow Me. And we should
follow Him in the waters of baptism. We should follow Him into His
church. And we should serve the Lord in a local congregation. And have the Lord's Supper and
the feed washing. Waiting for His coming until
He appears again in His glory. Now that's a demonstration of
your love to God. And if you're disobedient to
that, There is no evidence that you are a child of God. I must
say that. True evidence. And I'm not saying
that a person can't join the church and not be born again.
That has happened, too. But you must face your responsibility
as a believer. What is my responsibility to
God? What is my responsibility to
God? Jesus is our forerunner. He's
entered heaven already for us. Hallelujah for that. He obtained
eternal redemption for us. Eternal redemption. As I spoke
the last time, we shall never perish. Why? Because He obtained
eternal redemption. Not part-time redemption. And I can remember my own life
when I was struggling with... This is something that you'll
have to do personal believer. This is not a family thing. Sometimes all family might be
believers, but you have to do it as an individual believer.
It's not something mother and dad do for you. Do you have a
decision to make to follow Christ in baptism? If I make that decision,
I made that decision as a young man, as an individual decision
I made because I wanted to follow Christ. Have I had my ups and
downs? Yes. Have I lived a perfect life? No. But I would still make that
decision again. Because it was a decision preached
by the gospel is to follow Jesus Christ. Some of you may get tired of
hearing this. But I believe it's the responsibility of elders
to preach to believers. I'm talking to believers to follow
Christ and baptism and joining the local church and following
and obeying Jesus Christ until His second coming. And if we
don't preach that, then we're failing to preach the true gospel
of Jesus Christ. He laid down His life for us.
Hereby I perceive we, the love of God, because He laid down
His life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
That's what I've been saying this morning. As He's laying
down His life for us, we should be laying down our lives for
each other. It doesn't matter how much I say I love someone.
If I'm not willing to sacrifice on their behalf, my words don't
mean anything. Neither does yours. So much today
of Christianity is lip service. As God said, they draw nigh to
Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. He laid down His life for us.
And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. And that
includes sisters also. It costs something to do that.
It costs something. He appeared in the presence of
God for us. I love these verses in Hebrews
9, 24 and 7, 25. He says, For Christ is not entered
into the holy place made with hand, which are the figure of
the true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence
of God for us. I don't think we really grasp
the completeness of that, what that's saying. Wherefore, he
is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him. How
do we come unto God? By God, by him, by Christ. He's
the mediator. There's one mediator between
God and man. The man, Christ Jesus. Seeing He ever liveth
to make intercessions for them. That's why we're secure. And brother, we're dealing with
eternal things this morning. These are things that are everlasting. These are things that separate
the sheep from the goats. These are things that those who
go their whole life in never believing Christ, never following
Christ, never baptized, never joined the local church, never
have a love to obey God, it's an evidence that they're of the
world. As a tree falleth, it says in
the book of Revelation, let it lie. You die an unbeliever, you
will remain an unbeliever. He comes in His second coming
in glory, and you an unbeliever, you will die as an unbeliever. He's praying and making intercessions
for us. Better things for us. We have
a better covenant in Hebrews. We have better promises. We have
a better sacrifice. We have an endearing substance
because it's forever. It's eternal. We have a country
which is heavenly. The city of Bill is maker is
God. Better. Better. Oh, the precious times
I've had in the church of God, Brother Roger. Precious times.
The baptisms I've seen in this church. The people who have came
into my Zion and have moved to other parts of the nation. But
the love and the spiritual blessings we've seen with baptisms and
crying and weeping in the house of God and people rejoicing in
the goodness and love of God. Oh, what a joy that is. Unspeakable
and full of glory. In conclusion, 2 Timothy 2.19
says, Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure. Having
this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His. He knows His children. And let everyone that nameth
the name of Christ depart from iniquity. Yes, there's a responsibility
being a Christian. What is it, Brother Rhodes, to
depart from iniquity? If we don't hate sin and we love
sin, there's something wrong with our hearts. Now, I'm not
saying you won't be tested to sin. I'm not saying that you
won't go through trials. I'm not saying that you may not
fall. But there is something wrong if we continually love
iniquity more than we love Christ. Christ should be our supreme
love. He should be who we seek after
our soul longingly. who gave Himself for our sins
that He might redeem us from this present evil world." Presently. You know, some people want heaven,
but they don't want to give up the world. They want both. They want to live like they want
to in this world. Live ungodly. Live wicked. Live into this world. Love the things of the world.
And then wake up in glory. Jesus said He gave Himself for
our sins that He might deliver us from when? This present. evil
world according to the will of God and our Father. So it's God's
will that we are delivered from this present evil world. And
sometimes people get those things mixed up. What is this evil world?
It's the world of sin. It's the world of Satan. All
the ungodliness and wickedness and evil that's in this world
system is all under Satan. When Jesus says, love not the
world, He's talking about the system of evil. He's talking
about that kingdom of darkness. He's talking about that prince
in power of the air who's over the children of disobedience.
We are not to love that world. How can we be born again of the
Spirit of God, translated into the kingdom of God, dear Son,
and still maintain the same love as we did before we were born
again? True. Yes, it will always be
tempting us. Yes, it's always affecting us.
Yes, it's always trying to draw us into sin. But, beloved, there
is a love now for the Kingdom of God. There's a love for the
Father. There's a love for the Son. There's a love for the Holy
Spirit. And the love of God is said and
brought in our hearts. And we have a love for each other. There's
a difference. We've changed. We've changed. who had delivered us from the
power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear
Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of sins. Beloved, sin has not been totally annihilated, eradicated,
but the power of it has been broken to the point that we are
no longer total slaves to sin. And that's something we should
rejoice about. And we've been translated to
the Kingdom of His dear Son. The love of God is brought in
our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We're kept by the power of God.
As you see in the parable of the sower of the seed, there's
different seeds. But the one who had the good
heart was quickened by the Holy Spirit and brought forth fruit.
Some thirtyfold, sixtyfold, some a hundredfold. There's a difference.
There's a difference. And in closing, as Roger mentioned this last
week in his message, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice. A living. God doesn't want some
old dead sacrifice. He wants a living sacrifice. Holy. Set apart. acceptable unto God, which is
your reasonable service." Is it unreasonable for God to expect
us to live a holy life? People say, well, I can just
live like I want to and go to heaven when I die. It's not the
will of God, beloved. It says, whether we live, we
live unto the Lord, Or whether we die, we die unto the Lord.
Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. Believers, I'm talking to believers
only, you belong to the Lord. Now get this in our minds. We
belong to the Lord. Paul says in Corinthians 6, we've
been bought with the price. Therefore, glorify God in your
body and in your spirit which are God's. We've been bought
by God. We've been purchased from sin.
We've been bought out of the world. We're no longer our own.
God is our Lord and we are to yield obedience to the Lord and
not to our selfish desires. That's why Jesus said, if a man
will follow me, Let him deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me. Now, some people, it takes a
lot to be sacrificed, to be baptized, because in some families, if
you're a Jew, you're considered dead. No longer part of the family. If you're Muslim and you become
a Christian and believe in Christ, they cut you off. And if they
have the opportunity, they will cut your life off. You'll be
destroyed. When the true Spirit of God brings
in true conversion and a heart been changed, there will be a
desire. There will be a desire to follow Christ and to obey
Him. That's what I'm trying to say
this morning. It's all because the love of God being shed or
brought in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and that love will
compel us to obey the Master. Obey the Master. And we as Christians
who matured in Christians, we need to really remind ourselves
that we're not our own, that we've been brought with the price.
We need to set the example for the young believers in the church. They need to see us as an example.
Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ. And that's what Mark
and Roger and myself and Dave and Bill, other men of the church,
should be saying. Follow us as we follow Christ. We need to
be a living example to these principles in the church. And we're not. And when we're
not doing that, we are hindering the cause of Christ ourselves. Jesus said, Are you with me or
against me? If you don't follow Christ, you're
against Him. That's not my words, that's His words. So, beloved,
I pray that each one of us will face our responsibility as believers. In a local church, my Zion, Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do? We read Paul's confession on
the road to Damascus, and he said, Lord, what wilt thou have
me to do? But we never turn that around to ourselves and say,
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do as a believer in my Zion,
in the local church? And as believers who have not
followed the Lord in baptism, you should say, Lord, what will
thou help me to do? Are you willing to submit yourselves to the Lord
and Master? And I believe He'll lead you
the right way. May we pray. Our gracious and loving Father,
we thank You for the love of God. We thank You for the love
of Christ which is shed and brought in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
Lord, You tell us not to quench the Spirit. You teach us to follow
on more and more. For we need to demonstrate our
love, first of all, to you as Lord and Master. Secondly, to
your body, which is the church, that we might be faithful to
you and then demonstrate it in our lives to the local body of
Christ. And pray that others may see
this love and be drawn into the house of the living God. Lord,
we thank you for your mercy upon us. We thank you for your keeping
power. We do thank you for all the blessings that we have. Every
good gift and perfect gift cometh down from the Father light, through
no shall of turning, no variable in this. Oh, Father, we thank
you that you're the unchanging God. I pray that you'll dismiss
it with your love and be with us. And we thank you for your
love and compassion to us. Thank you for your keeping power.
We pray that You will continue to keep us this week. You shall
have brought into our hearts the love of God. And Lord, may
we all ask ourselves, Lord, what will Thou have me to do? In Christ's
name we pray, Amen.
The Love of Christ
The Love of Christ draws us to follow God and to love the children of God.
| Sermon ID | 4261392782 |
| Duration | 47:56 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.