Our sermon text is found in Psalm 149. Please turn with me, if you would, to Psalm 149. Once again, I'll be reading from the New King James Version. I especially wanted to emphasize Psalm 149, verse 4. We're going to be talking quite a bit about verse 4. But so that we get the whole context, I wanted to look at the whole Psalm. So we'll be reading all of Psalm 149 together. Psalm 149. Once again please pay careful and reverent attention to the reading of God's holy and inerrant Word. Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song in His praise in the assembly of saints. Let Israel rejoice in their Maker. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. Let them praise His name with a dance. Let them sing praises to Him. with the timbrel and harp. For the Lord takes pleasure in his people. He will beautify the humble with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory. Let them sing aloud on their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand to execute vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples, to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron. execute on them the written judgment. This I honor and have all the saints. Praise the Lord. Let's try the reading of God's Word. May the Lord bless the reading and the preaching of His Word to our hearts and to our lives this Lord's Day. About 30 years ago, I was the director of the Men's Living Center at a small Christian boarding school in eastern Tennessee. I was kind of a dorm father for the boys that lived on the campus, and it was a living position, and there were two resident assistants below me, but my responsibility was to take care of the boys that were in the dormitory. And one day, it happened to be a day over spring break, or it could have been summer vacation, I'm not sure, but all the boys had left, but I had a question that I wanted to ask my counterpart in the woman's dorm, I wanted to talk to the director of the Women's Living Center, and so I walked across the campus. It wasn't very far, and I met her in the lobby of the building. There were lots of other people around. We weren't in private, but I had a question that I had to ask her, and I expected that it would take me about 15 minutes. for me to ask her the question and for her to give me the answer. And I thought, well, after that 15 minutes is over, I can go back to where I was living and I could just do whatever I needed to do for the rest of the day. But that 15 minute conversation actually expanded. It actually grew. So we were talking about all kinds of things. We were really just socializing with each other. We were both Christians. And so we had a lot in common, just as you have a lot in common with the other Christians that you know. And so what was originally supposed to be a 15 minute A meeting turned into a 30-minute meeting, and then it was an hour, and then it was two hours. And I think we were probably there for about three hours together, and other people started to join in. And before I knew it, there were probably at least six or seven of us that were just enjoying each other's time together, just having fellowship together, not really trying to accomplish anything important, but just spending time together. Somebody ordered a pizza, I think, or maybe some Chinese food. I can't remember what it was. And we just had a great time together. And I thought that everybody was enjoying themselves. Well, a few days later, I found out that the director of the Women's Living Center, the person that I had originally gone to go see, didn't enjoy that time at all. She had other things that she planned on doing, and she wasn't having a good time at all. I don't know why she didn't say something. I don't know why she tolerated all that. I don't know why she didn't just make an excuse of some kind and leave. But even though we were there three hours together and I was having a good time, she was not. She didn't really want to be there. And that reminded me of something that often happens in human relationships. We have a pretty good idea how it is that we feel about other people, but we're not quite sure how they feel about us. And so sometimes that makes us a little hesitant. It makes us a little reluctant to pursue relationships with other people. You'll think about what it was like when you got married, those of you that got married. Think about what it was like when you were trying to decide whether you were gonna say the words, I love you, to your future spouse. What was that like? Chances are it was a pretty stressful time. You know, you weren't really sure if you should say that or not. Who was the first person in your relationship to say those words, I love you? Well, you know, it's kind of a tense time and you're not really sure necessarily if you should be the first one to say those words, I love you. What if you say, I love you, and she says, or he says, Well, that's nice. You know, thank you for the information. Oh, that's so sweet of you to say. I love you. And they don't say they don't say I love you in return. That's really what you're afraid of, right? That's really what you're afraid of when you're thinking about whether you want to say those words. I love you. You're not sure that they're going to say I love you in return. Well, human relationships are just like that. You know, sometimes people are hard. The same thing can happen in our relationship to God. We may very well know how we feel about God. We may very well be ready to say to God, I love you. But what if he doesn't feel the same way about us? What if he doesn't love us? Because after all, the Bible says that each one of us is a sinner. We offend the holiness of God every minute of every day. What if God doesn't love us? Well then, you see, if that's true, it makes it very hard for us to commit ourselves to him, to commit ourselves with our whole heart to him, to tell him that we love him, and to govern ourselves and our behavior accordingly. because we're really not sure how he feels about us. We're not really sure how intimate we can be in our relationship with God because we don't know what it is that he's thinking about us. Well, the good news of the Bible is that God tells us how he feels about us. And when we find out how it is that He feels about us we can have confidence, we can have boldness as we have a relationship and enjoy that relationship with God. We know that we can be as intimate with Him as our finite nature allows us to be. Psalm 149 verse four tells us, for the Lord takes pleasure in His people. You see the Lord really takes pleasure in us. He really enjoys us. We're used to the idea that the relationship that we have with God is a personal relationship. You know there's a difference between knowing about God and knowing God. Some of you have maybe read the book by J.I. Packer that came out back in the 1970s, but J.I. Packer makes this distinction between knowing God and knowing about God. It's possible for somebody to know about God, but to not know God. In other words, it's possible for somebody to fill their head with a lot of information about God. It's possible for somebody to know a lot about doctrine, to know a lot about theology. It's possible for somebody even to have memorized the Westminster Shorter Catechism from beginning to end, and yet not know God in a personal way, to not have that communion with God. In other words, it's possible for people to get confused and to think that because they know about God, they actually know God. Because they know something about having a relationship with God and what that requires, they may think that they actually do have a relationship with God. I'm not saying that we shouldn't fill our heads with as much information, as much facts about God as we possibly can. We really should try to memorize the Westminster Oratory Catechism. We really ought to study the Westminster Oratory Catechism, the Westminster Confession of Faith. And if you haven't done that yet I recommend that you do. But there is still a difference isn't there? There is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God. same thing is true from God's point of view as well. There is a difference between knowing about us and knowing us. There is a difference between knowing about us and having a relationship with us. And the Bible says that God not only knows about us, after all He knows about everything, but He actually knows us. He has a relationship with us. It's not just a one-sided deal. It's not just a relationship that we have with Him. He has a relationship with us too. It's not just that we enjoy knowing Him. It's that He enjoys knowing us as well. The Bible tells us He delights in us. And why does He delight in us? Well, because He loves us. He's always loved us. He always will love us. And it's very important for us to know that so that our relationship with God is as full and as abundant and as intimate as it possibly can be. We come to know Him because He knows us. We come to love Him because He loves us. We come to have this intimate relationship with Him, this communion with Him, this fellowship with Him. he has an intimate relationship with us, because he has fellowship with us. I've got several points I'd like to show you from the Scripture passage this morning. First of all, Zechariah chapter 2 verse 8 says, whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye. We are the apple of God's eye. And why is that? Because he loves us so much. Because he has this fellowship with us. Because he has this communion with us. Because we are his people. And because he delights in us. Don't take my word for it, brothers and sisters. Receive this truth on the authority of God's word. Don't believe it just because I'm saying so, believe it because the Bible says so. I've got several passages I'd like to show you from the scripture passage, from the scripture this morning, that will prove what I just said, that God really loves us. And one of the things I think you'll notice as I read this long list of verses, and by the way you can look up these verses for yourself either now or later on, but I can read them for you. at least to save you the trouble now. But one of the things that you'll notice is that when God demonstrates His love for us, He doesn't just tell us that He loves us, He actually shows us that He loves us. You know, it's important as far as God is concerned that we not only say that we love, but that we demonstrate our love by our actions. For example, in John chapter 14, Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. You see how the logic works? When we say that we love God, we're supposed to do something about it. You know, it's very easy for people to go around and say, well, I love God, and I love you. You know, love is one of the most abused words in the English language. People use that word all the time, and most of the time, quite frankly, you know, they don't know what they mean, especially when they're talking about loving God. But the Bible tells us what love is. One of the things the Bible tells us about love is that love is always followed by an action. It's followed by something you do. If you really love, whether you love God or you love the people around you, it's going to make a difference in your behavior. James talks about this too. What are we supposed to do if we really love our neighbor and we find out that our neighbor doesn't have a coat and it's a cold day in the wintertime and we have two coats? What are we supposed to do that? Well, if we really love our neighbor the way we should, we'll demonstrate our love by giving our neighbor a coat when he needs one on a cold winter day. All right, well, the same thing is true from God's perspective as well. God loves us, but he doesn't just gonna say that he loves us, he's gonna demonstrate his love for us in the things that he does for us. I've got several examples I want to show you. The first one is from Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 8. We read Deuteronomy chapter 7 a little while ago. But what does Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 8 say? Because the Lord loves you and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of bondage. from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. So in other words, because God loves his people Israel, he brought them out of Egypt. He brought them out of the land of slavery and out of the house of bondage. God showed His love for the people of Israel by what He did for them. And sometimes people get confused at this point and they say, well wait a minute the book of Exodus says that the reason that God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt was for His own glory. To demonstrate His glory in the sight of the nations. Now that's perfectly true. God did bring His people Israel out of Egypt to demonstrate His glory. But there's no contradiction you see. There's no contradiction between saying God did something for his own glory and God did something because he loves his people. Those things are very easy to reconcile. They go hand in hand with one another. Sometimes God demonstrate his glory by demonstrating his love. Now there are other ways that God might demonstrate his glory. God might demonstrate his glory by demonstrating his wrath and his anger against sin and against sinners. But today, since we can't talk about everything all at once, today what we're really talking about is the way that God demonstrates his love for us by doing something for us. by manifesting His salvation in us, by redeeming us from our sins. That's why God brought His people, Israel, out of Egypt. John chapter 3 verse 16, probably the most famous verse in the Bible, right? What does it say? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Why did God send His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins on the cross? He did it because He loves us. And so every time you and I, brothers and sisters, think of the cross of Christ, we ought to think of the love that He has for us. We ought to think of the love that God has for us and for all of His people every time we think about the cross of Christ. Now, the cross of Christ also shows us something else. It also shows us the wrath of God against sin, because His only begotten Son had to suffer and die on the cross. The Bible teaches us that Jesus descended into hell. And why is that? Because that's how much God hates sin. That's how much God hates our sin. But what's the other reason that Jesus did this? What's the other reason that God sent Jesus to die for our sins on the cross? It's because of his love for us. And so you and I should never doubt. We should never doubt that God loves us. Never doubt how God feels about you. Romans chapter 5 verses 7-8 say something very similar. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone wouldn't even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us and that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. God demonstrates His own love toward us the way that Christ died for us. Ephesians chapter 1 verses 5 and 6, in love having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. Why did God predestine us to salvation? Why didn't He just leave us alone to die and to perish like the rest of mankind? God predestined us according to Ephesians 1 because of the love that He has for us. That was His motive you see. And so every time we think of our predestination we are reminded that God loved us before the foundation of the world. And just as His love for us had no beginning so it will have no end. Jeremiah chapter 3 verse 13, The Lord has appeared of old to me saying, yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness, I have drawn you. Why did God draw us to himself? Well, it's because according to Jeremiah chapter three, verse 13, it's because of the everlasting love that he has for us that God drew us to himself. And so every time we think of this relationship that we have with God, We're reminded of the everlasting love, the love that has no beginning, the love that has no end. We're reminded of the everlasting love that God has for us. 1 John 3, verse 1 speaks of our adoption. Why did God adopt us to be His children? Well, 1 John 3, verse 1 tells us, behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. It's because of the love that God has for us that He adopted us. And so every time we think of our adoption, we think of the love that God has for us, otherwise we don't think of it properly. Ephesians 2, verse 4, why did God regenerate us? Why did God make us alive when we were dead in our sins? But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. by grace you have been saved. It wasn't just his love according to this verse, it was the great love with which he loved us that motivated him to regenerate in us, that motivated him to make us alive. And so we can't think of our regeneration without thinking of the love that God has for us. Revelation chapter one, verses five through six. to Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father. To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. It was because of the love that God has for us that we were washed in the Son. Now, you may think to yourself, well, Jeff, you're really talking about God's grace, aren't you? To a certain extent, I am. Those verses that I just read are really about God's grace too. But they're especially about God's love and there's a difference. There's a difference between the love that God has for us and the grace with which He deals with us. Grace is how God deals with us. Love is why He deals with us. Do you see the difference between those things? Grace is really God's method of dealing with us. Love is really God's motive in dealing with us. And so when we think of our salvation brothers and sisters We don't just think of God's grace, we think of His love too. We're reminded over and over again as we read our Bibles and as we meditate on our salvation, we're reminded that God loves us, He really does. And that's not gonna change. He loves us with an everlasting and eternal love. When God saw that we could not save ourselves, He loved us enough to extend His grace to us and so saved us by His own power. So now I have a question. And it's a question that I can't answer for you and that you can't answer for me. But the question is this. Why are we not convinced that God loves us? When we see so many clear testimonies of His witness to us in the Holy Scriptures. Why is it that we're not smiling from ear to ear every day? Why is it that we can go days at a time, weeks at a time, months at a time without remembering that God loves us? How is that possible when the Bible is so clear? Well, I really have three answers to that question. First of all, we know deep down inside that we don't deserve God's love. God is holy and we are sinners. The truth is we break God's law every day. We do not love God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our strength. We do not love our neighbors as ourselves. We sin every day, so we don't deserve God's love. And I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that's perfectly true. We don't deserve God's love. But the good news of the Bible is that God loves us anyway. Even on those days when we're least deserving of it, God continues to love us. Let that truth wash over you, brothers and sisters. It will transform your lives. But then the second reason sometimes we don't believe that God really loves us It's because of all the hardships that we suffer in life. The world and the flesh and the devil tell us a lie. They tell us that if God really loved us, we wouldn't suffer as much as we do. We wouldn't have so much trouble with sickness. If God really loved us, we would be healthy. If God really loved us, we would be popular. If God really loved us, We would be wealthy. If God really loved us, we wouldn't have any problems. When terrible things happen to us, we tell ourselves, you know, if God really loved me, I wouldn't be going through this trial. I wouldn't be going through all this trouble if God really loved me. God can change this. He can stop it at any moment He chooses. We tell ourselves things like that. But that's not true either, is it? The Bible tells us that sometimes God disciplines us for our own good. He doesn't give us everything we want because He knows what's best for each and every one of us. And sometimes what's best for us is to be chastised. Sometimes what's best for us is to be disciplined. And so He doesn't give us everything that we want. Sometimes He takes away from us the things that we value in this world the most so that we will value Him more. And why does God do that? Well, according to the book of Hebrews, He does that because He loves us. because He wants us to grow in holiness and in righteousness, which are really the best things. Instead of the money, instead of the health, instead of the popularity, holiness and righteousness are what we really need. That's why Romans chapter eight says that God works all things together for the good of who? Of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. We should not allow the hardships and the trials and the tribulations that we go through, that each and every one of us go through. We shouldn't allow those things to convince us and persuade us in some way that God really doesn't love us. You know there's a very interesting passage about this in John Chapter 11. You may recall that Lazarus got sick and ultimately died. And what does his sister say to Jesus? She said, the one you love is sick. That sounds like a contradiction in terms, doesn't it? How could the one that Jesus loved be sick? Yet it's true. And it happens every day. It doesn't just happen to Lazarus. It happens to people all over the world all the time. The people that God loves sometimes become sick for reasons that are important to God, even if we don't understand those reasons. But that doesn't mean that God has stopped loving us just because somebody gets sick. If you and I get sick, we can honestly say the same thing that John chapter 11 says, Lord, the one you love is sick. Then there's a third reason why sometimes we don't believe that God really loves us. And I think this is probably the most important reason of all. Spiritual truths are spiritually discerned. In other words something can be clearly taught to us in the Bible. It might even be something we really want to believe like the fact that God loves us. But something could be clearly taught to us in the Bible and we don't believe it. Why is that? It's because you and I are sinners, brothers and sisters. And sin affects every part of who we are, every part of what we do, and everything that we think. Sometimes the theologians call this the noetic effects of sin. In other words, sin changes the way we think. It changes even the way that we read the Bible. It determines whether or not we believe what the Bible says or not. Sin so clouds our minds and our hearts that we can refuse to believe even the most basic truths, even the clearest truths of God's word. And so what do we have to do? We have to pray. We have to pray that God would open our hearts and open our minds because only He can do it. We have to ask God to open our hearts and our minds so that we believe the truths of the Bible. Even the truths that we really want to believe. Even the truths that would make us happy if only we believed them are truths that are closed to our understanding unless God opens our hearts and our minds by His Holy Spirit. And that's why the Apostle Paul prayed the way that he prayed in Ephesians chapter three, verses 14 through 19. And maybe we can pray this prayer for one another and for ourselves as well. But notice what it says. For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father, my Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of God, or I should say the love of Christ, to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. How did Paul pray for the Ephesians? He prayed that they would know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. You could pray that prayer for yourself. You could pray for the people in your life in the same way. That they also, as well as yourself, would know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. Not just to know about it, but to know it. to fully embrace it, to understand it, to be transformed by it. This is God's intention for us, brothers and sisters. And when that doesn't happen, something's wrong. There's one way we should apply this truth about God's love for us. Don't go to the world for love. Don't go to the world for the love that you feel that you need. There was a song a few years ago, a few decades ago, looking for love in all the wrong places. This is what Christians do. Instead of going to God for all the love that they need, they go everywhere else but God. And when they go to these other places and to these other people, to try to find the love that they feel that they need, they don't find it. And they get frustrated. And they're unhappy. And they're miserable. Because their wife doesn't love them the way they should. Their husband doesn't love them the way they should. Their children don't love them the way they should. Their parents don't love them the way they should. Their boss doesn't love them the way he should. And they get frustrated. They get angry. They get upset. because they looked for love from somebody who wasn't capable of giving it to them. We need to just do what the Bible says. The Bible says that we've got all the love that we can handle from God. We should be going to him for the love that we need, for the love that we crave, for the love that we desire. I had a very interesting experience that taught me something very valuable. You know, I told somebody earlier that I retired about three months ago. It was almost three months ago to this day. I used to work as a chaplain at Osawatomie State Hospital in Osawatomie. And I let people know that I was going to retire. And I thought, oh, this is going to be great, you know, because I gave people plenty of advance notice that I'm going to retire. And what are they going to do? They're going to come to my office and they're going to say nice things. They're going to say, oh, Jeff, we're going to miss you so much. We love you so much. You were such a wonderful part of our lives. And now you're going to be leaving and tears are going to be streaming down their faces. And I'm going to feel all warm and toasty inside because of the love that they professed for me. And you know what happened? Nobody showed up. Nobody. Well, I take that back. You know, there were one or two people that gave me cards, you know, And then when I retired from the state of Kansas and I had been gone about a month, they sent me a plaque in the mail. Oh, that's not nice. But this is what happens. You know, Jesus said that you can expect the world to hate you because they hated him first. So how are you going to go to the world for the love that you need, for the love that you want, for the love that you desire? How are you going to do that? You're not going to do that. Not if you pay attention to the Bible. you're going to go to God for the love that you need. Because God has all the love that you can handle, both in this life and in the world to come. He will show you that love over and over again. But most of all, you can have confidence in your relationship with God. You don't have to worry about whether you should say, I love you to God first, And then wait for him to say, I love you. Or the other way around. Because the truth is, he's already told you that he loves you. He's already said, I love you. And so we can have as full and an abundant and as intimate a communion and fellowship with God as you could possibly imagine. Words could not express. I could not express to you from this place, brothers and sisters. how much love God has for us, and how intimate we could be with him because of that love. God loves you. He's always loved you, and he always will love you. Let's close in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the love that you have for us. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to know it, and to acknowledge it, and to love you in return. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Let's respond to the reading and the preaching of God's word by singing together Psalm 149, Selection A in the Blue Psalter, Psalm 149, Selection A of the Blue Soldier. Let's all stand together as we sing. ♪ Sing aboard a new song ♪ Sing aboard a new song ♪ Sing aboard a new song ♪ Sing aboard a new song ♪ Sing aboard a new song ♪ Sing aboard a new song ♪ Sing aboard a new song ♪ Sing aboard a new song ♪ Sing aboard a new song ♪ Sing aboard a new song ♪ Sing aboard a new song ♪ And the sound of triumph ♪ ♪ Raised me I to their feet ♪ ♪ In exuberant dancing ♪ ♪ Let them worship their slain ♪ ♪ Celebrate and learn joy ♪ ♪ Bow and sing of his fame ♪ ♪ For the Lord and his people ♪ ♪ Finds great joy and ease ♪ Our doxology is taken from Psalm 41, Selection C, in the blue psalter. Psalm 41, Selection C. Brothers and sisters, be sure to know that God loves you. He's always loved you. And he always will love you. I hear the better picture of the Lord. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all now and forever. Amen. Oh, thank you.