That's a beautiful hymn and speaks about the Father's love for us and giving us His Son. And our sermon today is on the blessing and gift of the Holy Spirit given to us by the Father. So, it's a lovely hymn nevertheless. Let's pray together. Father, we Thank you for the opportunity to gather in both parts of our gathering today, to gather at your table, and to remember your love for us in the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you, Father, for your sustaining love and keeping love We thank you for the wonders of your mercy, as we already were reminded of earlier. Wonders of mercy, how many there are, how great they are. Lord, I thank you that for many of us, these wonders are becoming more precious and more sweet to us as the years go by, as we learn of our own weakness and our own frailty and our own sinfulness. We marvel at your electing love, your saving love. We marvel at your patient love in the lives of your children. Father, I pray that you would bless the hearing of the Word today. Father, I pray that you would give us a taste of your own self and your glory, that we might taste and see that you are indeed gracious. Father, I pray that you would help us to hear and to understand. Help us, Lord, to worship. Help us, Lord, to repent, as we so often need to do when we are reminded of our need and of your glory. Keep each one of us, Lord. Protect us. Shield us. from every foe, and I pray that you would continue to make us more and more like your dear Son. In His name we pray, Amen. I would invite you to turn again with me to Romans chapter 5. I'm going to read once more verses 1 through 5, and then we're going to spend our time in verse 5. The title of my message this morning is, taken from verse 5, A Hope That Does Not Disappoint. Verse 1, Therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame. because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. So far we have seen in this passage that because of our justification, we have peace with God, we also have access into the grace of God in which we stand. That's because of our justification. Also because of our justification, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We are confident that God is going to be glorified, that we are going to share in that glory, and we're going to see that glory. And then in verse 3, not only that, but also because of our justification, we rejoice in sufferings. How is a man able to rejoice in sufferings? How are we able to rejoice like this? What gives a man such confidence? What is it founded upon? It's founded upon the fact of our justification. This is what we examined in our last sermon. And remember that Paul is not saying that we rejoice in spite of our sufferings. He doesn't say that. He says we rejoice in our sufferings. He's not saying, I'm going through all these difficulties God, but in spite of them I'm able to rejoice. It's more than that. We rejoice in our sufferings. Now in verse 5, we move on to this matter of disappointment. Or as the ESV says, the shame of disappointment. And I doubt today if there's anyone here that has not been, that's not familiar with disappointment. We know what disappointment is. If you are one who has not experienced any disappointment, come to me afterwards and tell me what it's like, because I don't know. I don't know about that. In verses 3 and 4, we saw how that God in his loving providence, that is his ordering affairs, in our lives, that he's able to make good to come out of what's painful and what's difficult. That the sufferings that disappoint us, that bring pain to us, that God works through them, producing endurance and character and hope. One of the things that I'm recognizing or realizing more and more in my own life is that through suffering God weans me away from things that are frail, infallible, and where my expectations are mis-focused. They're in something that's not legitimate and not right. And God has been, and I expect that some of you are able to say the same thing, that we see God working in our lives and taking our focus away from what is fragile and frail and temporal and unworthy. And He turns our attention and our focus more and more upon Himself. And we noticed in our last sermon that when Paul finishes this section in verse 11, that we end up not just rejoicing in our sufferings, but we actually end up rejoicing in Him. That our joy is in God Himself. And that rejoicing will never be shattered. That hope will never disappoint. It will never let us down. It will never deceive us. The hope that we have in our worthy God will never be dashed and shattered. You know, it's a frequent part of our lives, I'm afraid, this matter of disappointment of the psalmist acknowledges this in numbers of his psalms concerning his hopes that were raised, and then they're dashed and they come apart. In verse Psalm 102, the psalmist says, Hear my prayer, O Lord, let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me, answer me speedily in the day when I call. For my days pass away like smoke and my bones burn like a furnace. My heart is struck down like grass and has withered. I forget to eat my bread. Because of my loud groaning, my bones cling to my flesh. I'm like a desert owl in the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places. I lie awake, I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop. All the day my enemies taunt me. Those who deride me use my name for a curse. For I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink. Because of your indignation and anger, for you have You've taken me up and thrown me down. That's verse 10. God, you have lifted me up, my hope was increased, and then you threw me down like a broken tool that's useless or worthless. And so we're all familiar with hope that disappoints, but verse five here in chapter five says, there is a hope that does not put us to shame. God's given his children many great and precious promises. And yet often the providences of God seem to disappoint us. And our hopes that we had, They sometimes seem fragile and broken. But there is a hope in the gospel that will never disappoint us. Now I want you to look at verse 5. Verse 5 tells us why. Our gospel hope will not disappoint us, will not put us to shame. Do you notice the word because there? And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. And twice the apostle brings up this matter of hope in this section. And first of all, back in verse 2, Paul talks about justification by faith, the fact that Jesus Christ stood in our place and bore our sin and bore the wrath of God for us, that we have hope that we are right with God, we have gospel hope, we have hope that our sins are forgiven, And that's the first time that this word hope is used. In other words, whenever the gospel comes to us and speaks to us, the comfort of sins forgiven, that this brings or provides for us, gives us a hope that all is well with our soul, that God counts us guiltless, And we understand that our salvation is secure because of the gospel, justification. And we're confident that we're justified today because we're justified in the last and final day. And so we have hope, we have this assurance. We rejoice in this hope, and that's the first usage of this word hope, but now he brings up the matter of hope again. He says that's not all, there's more to this hope. I asked my children, do you think that we would understand what a pincer movement is? Do you understand that term? A pincer movement is whenever whenever you come at an object from two directions, two opposite directions, and you come together for this one point. And so Paul here uses like a pincer movement, and he says, we have hope on this side because of justification. through the Lord Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven. But then he says there's another hope that comes in from this direction. And this is, this second hope, is the experience of the gospel in our lives. And so we could call the one hope the hope that we have because of the truth of the gospel, and the other hope we have because of the experience of the gospel. And both of these are at work in our lives beautifully coming together. providing for us a double-sided blessing that we have hope because we understand the truth of the gospel, and we have hope because we experience the gospel, we see it working in our lives. And both of these things contribute hope to the child of God. And as we understand this double-sided hope, this two-pronged hope, this pincer movement of God to encourage our hearts, then peace with God becomes the peace of God in us. That because of the fact of peace, we now have the feeling of peace, the sense of peace. And I love the interplay of the word peace here and joy and rejoicing. Someone said that peace is joy resting and joy is peace dancing. And I think that's beautifully put. that because we have this certain hope, this sure hope, this double-sided hope, that we have peace with God and the peace of God, and even at times this peace puts on its dancing slippers and manifests itself as joy and rejoicing in our lives. We noticed some months ago when we were studying Genesis that God, or Joseph, said that the dream is sure, it's double, that means it's sure. And I think about that often now when I'm studying and I come across something that's double, like this double hope. I think, well, it speaks of, it's twice, it's double, it's sure, it's certain. And so what God does in His providence in our life, including sufferings, including trials, it produces in us a certain hope because we know that suffering is the raw material out of which God produces the end product. That God takes suffering and pressure, and trials, and produces an end product. And the end product is nothing less than the glory of God. And this is what He is producing. Have you ever stood on the beach and looked out across the ocean? And I've done that, and I don't know why it is. Maybe it's my curiosity. Maybe it's my desire to know the unknown. But when I stand there and look out across the ocean, I almost always think, without fail, what's over the horizon? You know, I can see that far, but what's just beyond that? And so, Paul assures the believer, the child of God, that as you look out there, that we have a hope that one day we're going to see the glory of God coming over that horizon. And it's sure, and it's certain, it's not an if, it's not a maybe, but one day we shall see the glory of God just over that horizon. But will this hope disappoint me? like so many hopes disappoint us. Will I be put to shame? Paul says that this hope will not put us to shame because... Then he gives a reason. He says, I want you as a believer, when you're tempted to despair, when you're tempted to discouragement, when you're tempted to hopelessness, I want you to apply to that illness the hope of the gospel, the certainty of the gospel. I want you to know that because of God's love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who's given to us, that this hope will not put you to shame. This hope of the glory of God will never, never disappoint. I would say a word to teachers and preachers here, whether it's in the home, or with the neighbors, or in prison, or in a Bible study, or wherever it is. This is your duty. to make this known, to be certain of this, to be able to teach and preach with confidence, if you're going to be true to the gospel, you need to also make sure that your hearer understands that because God's love has been poured into a believer's heart through the Holy Spirit, that you can guarantee, that you can assure, that you can be certain, not only for yourself, but of those who hear the gospel message, that they can have confidence in the assurance that God will complete perfecting His glory in the lives of all who truly believe. And so the gospel will not disappoint, because God's love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. I want to show you three things in verse 5. First of all, we're going to take a few minutes and think about an affirmation. That's simply a statement of truth. There's an affirmation. There's an explanation. I already hinted at that. We considered the word because. There's an explanation. And then there are applications that I want to make for us. And this message this morning is mainly a message for believers here among us to encourage you in your faith and in your love for the Lord Jesus. So what is Paul saying? What is Paul affirming to be true? Well, I think it's very simple, very obvious. Paul is wanting us to know, he's wanting his reader, his hearer to know that God has given to you His Holy Spirit. And Paul is not speaking about one class of Christians. And there is a teaching of a second blessing, or what's called perfect love, that says that you can be a believer, and then you have another experience, and in this second experience, then you receive the Holy Spirit. That's not true. That's not what Paul was saying. Romans 8, verses 8 and 9 make it clear that if you do not have the Holy Spirit, you're not a disciple of Christ. You're not a believer. If any man have not the Spirit, he is not one of His. Romans 8, verses 8 and 9. If you do not have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, You are not a Christian at all. The Holy Spirit is given to and comes and dwells in all believers. In John chapter 14, Jesus tells his disciples that I'm going to the Father And I'm going to ask the Father for something. What does he tell the disciples he's going to ask the Father for? He says, I'm going to ask the Father to send to you another counselor, another comforter. Why does he use the word another? Well, because Jesus himself was their counselor. Jesus was with them. Jesus had been with them. He was teaching them. And Jesus says, I'm going, and I don't want your hearts to be troubled. because you know that I'm going, but I want you to understand that I'm going to the Father, and I'm going to ask the Father, and the Father is going to give another counselor, the Holy Spirit, to you. And so, through the Holy Spirit in our lives, and this is not future, this is present, Through the Holy Spirit in our lives, the Father and the Son come to us. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of the Father. It's called the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of Christ. And through the Holy Spirit in our lives, the Father and the Son will come to us and make their dwelling place in us. How great is that? How remarkable is that? To have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, abiding in us, filling us, keeping us, teaching us, counseling us, helping us, forgiving us, lifting us up when we're down, and strengthening us when we're weak. And this is the privilege of every believer. In our text, we're told that the Holy Spirit has been given. And this is why not understanding this is going to lead to a puny Christian life. We need to understand the doctrine of the Trinity. We need to understand the doctrine of God. We need to understand that. We need to work hard. We need to labor in trying to understand this because without an understanding of the God who indwells us, we're going to have a puny, empathetic, Christian life. I'm not saying that if you're struggling, he's not there. If you're a believer, he's there. There's no question about that. The problem is you just don't understand how there he is. That's the issue. And so it's not that you need to get God. You need to comprehend the God you got. That's the issue in your life that cripples you. at this very point. So what is Paul saying? What is Paul affirming to be true? He's saying that God has given the Holy Spirit to all of his dear children. And with this gift of the Holy Spirit, Paul affirms something else, that God's love has been poured into our hearts. when we get, when we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the gift of the Holy Spirit is not the gifts that the Holy Spirit brings. I'm using singular. When we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. When we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit with the Holy Spirit, God's love is poured into our hearts. What does this mean? Well, verses 6 through 8, the next section, make it clear that this is not speaking about our love for God being poured into our hearts. But in verse 5, what is poured into our hearts is God's love for us. There is such a thing as our love for God, but that's not the love of verse 5. The love of verse 5 is God's love for us. Because we see in verses 6, 7, 8 that we were weak, and we were sinners, and we were unrighteous, and while we were like this, that God loved us. So, we understand, don't we, that God's love was poured out upon the world in the cross of Calvary. We understand that, don't we? For God so loved the world. And so God's love is poured out in Calvary. And I hate to use this, but I couldn't come up with a better word in a general sort of way. And that makes it seem cheap. Please forgive me for that. I don't mean it that way. In a generic sort of way, maybe that would be a better word. That God's love is poured out upon the world, the cosmos, that rebelled against Him. For God so loved the world, and God did that. In verse 5 though, Paul's talking about something very different, something very personal. He's not talking about God's love being poured out upon the world. He's talking about God's love being poured right into here. into our hearts. And so again, you see that double picture, don't you? God's love upon the world, God's love poured out upon the world on the cross, and here, God's love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. When we become a Christian, We not only, I'm sorry, when we become a Christian, we not only know because of the cross that God loves us, but we know because His love is personally poured into our hearts. And so when someone becomes a Christian, we learn the meaning of what we said and sang all through childhood, that God loves me. That becomes real. It's not God loves the world, though that is true, but that God loves me. We really know that God loves me. Notice the word poured here. That's not just a little bitty bit. It's not that. It's what I think David talks about in Psalm 23 when he says that How does he say it? My cup runs over. That's poured out. That's more than enough to fill the cup. Isn't that when a cup runs over? It's when you try to put more than the cup in the cup. And so God's love is poured out. It's an extravagant love. It's an overflowing love. And then wonder of wonders begin to take place. God's love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, we begin to love God. And then we begin to love those who are unlike ourselves. Those that, if we did as someone said, we all took that psychological test thingy, the test would say keep this person as far away from this person as possible. Because there's nothing common between them. Well, amazing, isn't it? That when God's love is poured into our hearts, we begin to love God, and then we begin to love the unlikely. And the unlikely begins to love the unlikely. Those who are very different from us. So these are, I think, the two things that Paul was saying here. Remember that God has given you His Holy Spirit, and remember that God's love has been poured into your heart. The explanation. Paul's making an argument here. He uses the word because. And he says that we can be sure that our hope will never let us down because God's love is poured into our hearts. Why do we have confidence because of this? What does God's love being poured into our hearts have to do with our hope being sure? What does it have to do with confidence? It's because the love of God in verse 1 are justifying grace, the love which justifies the sinner, that love in verse 1, we may think of that as something over there and out there and distant from us, but when the love of God, which is certainly seen on the cross, when it's poured in here, It becomes near to us and personal to us, and it gives us a sense of confidence. It's like, you know, I've heard about the wonders of the king from afar, but now I've seen them with my own eyes. Who was that that said that? Was that the lady that came to visit? that said something like that, and that's what we see here. That we have confidence when the love which we see there is found here, when it's poured into our hearts. And so God's love is not just an ocean of love out there, but it is love that's poured into the heart of the believer. We have a certain hope that will not disappoint because the gift of His Son and all that that means, that truth, that meaning, that blessing is poured into our hearts. And the righteousness of God that's imputed to us, finally it has my name on it. And it's personal, it's for me, that not only does God justify sinners, but God justified Philip. And do you see that Paul's argument is that this will bring confidence into your life? And I'm afraid sometimes that true believers, sometimes all they really think about in the love of God is the love out there. And they have never realized that God put their name on it. And so my name is upon it. Oh, wonder of wonders. Why is it that the Christian is able in this context to rejoice in times of suffering? Well, because he or she knows that the Heavenly Father is doing us good through that suffering. We actually see Him shaping and molding us. That He's changing me. And I see that His work in my life is not ruining me, that He's making me like Jesus. And we rejoice in that and we have confidence in that because, again, our name is upon it. You know, if God did not love us, He would just leave us all ugly. He would. If he didn't love us, he would just let us go. And I know we can't comprehend this because it's not true, but if God somehow could have just forgiven us and said, now get out of my presence and stay away from me. I forgive you, but don't bug me, don't bother. No, he doesn't do that. The very fact that he is working in my life through trials, it gives me assurance. that though I'm vile and false and full of sin and I'm ugly and unlovable, he's changing that. And so I see his fingerprints upon my life, not as I want them to be, not as I would Hope they would be, but I know that he shall finish what he starts. Praise God for that. And so seeing him at work gives me confidence that he knows my name, he knows my address, and he loves me too much to let me be just as I am. And so the love that lies behind our justification in verse one, is a love that sustains me in my everyday life experience. And when he's finished, we are going to know love beyond any of our knowing and any of our imagining now. We will. You know, here in this life, and someone has said that those who are going to hell don't have to wait to get there to experience it. The same thing is true for those who are going to heaven. You don't have to wait to get there to experience it. You know, I believe that the song says, heaven came down and glory filled my soul. Well, not quite like the Wesley's taught, but he had the right idea. But heaven does come down. In fact, if we have a sweet time of fellowship through the Holy Spirit and in the Word and with brothers and sisters, what do we say when we go out the door? That was heavenly. That was a heavenly experience. Why? Because we imagine that that's what heaven is going to be like to the whatever power. You do the math. Someone said, that we taste here and now what we will experience there and then. We taste here and now in this life. We have a foretaste in the gift of the Holy Spirit of what God is going to finish in us because He loves me now and He's working in my life right now to make me like His dearly beloved Son. And so the hope of glory doesn't just lie in the facts of the gospel, but also it lies in my present experience of the gospel here and now. And I hope, brothers and sisters, that in some way you understand what I'm talking about. If not, you're crippled. if not you're diseased by the lack of that knowledge. We've got to understand something of what it is to have God to be at work in our lives now. Changing us, transforming us, and working in us, and seeing that happen is one of the reasons why I'm certain that my hope will not be put to shame. I already experience God's work in my life in a supernatural way. And it gives me confidence that I will not be put to shame. Don't you think that that's why the New Testament uses the language of when the Holy Spirit is given, that it's the guarantee? Well, what's a guarantee? The guarantee is that if you have a need in the future, there's going to be help there for it. Right? The Holy Spirit is called the firstfruits. We have the promise of the full harvest to come. The Holy Spirit is a pledge that's given. And every believer here, every one of us, we have enough sin in our life that would get us down if that's all we had. We do. And don't redefine sin so you don't have to admit to the truth of that. We have enough sin in our lives to get us down and get us discouraged if that's all we had. But that's not all we have. We have God's love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We have that too. And that's something very different than what we have of our own doing. You know, my sin has my name on it. It's my sin. But there's something else at work in Philip that doesn't have Philip's name on it. And it gives me confidence. It gives me joy. It gives me the assurance. that God is at work and God's going to finish your work. Isn't it fun to discover a grace in your life that's not of your doing? That's a lovely, lovely discovery. Where did that come from? Well, if it's a grace, it came from God who loves you through the Holy Spirit who's been given to you. We have new grace. We have new affections. We have new choices. We have new delights. We have a new obedience. And all of these are because God's love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. If there is not this newness in your life, I'm afraid you have not yet tasted the first fruits. It's not the full harvest, that's true, but there are firstfruits. Paul says in chapter 8 and verse 23, that those who have the firstfruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait. That's well put, isn't it? That we have the firstfruits of the Spirit, But even while we have the first fruits of the Spirit, we're groaning inwardly, not the groan of despair, but the groan of waiting. We groan inwardly as we wait. This is the not yet part of our redemption. You know what you taste and enjoy you want more of. And since we have tasted of the Holy Spirit and the love of God, the believer is not satisfied with anything less than that. We have a desire that we want more. We want more. I'm not going to be satisfied until I have everything that God has for me. In conclusion, several And I had to limit this part. By the time in my study till I came to here, there was just so many, many applications that I had to sort them out. And I would like to conclude with applying this a bit more. And I know that we've been making application as we went. But first of all, Having God's love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit is going to do something with our present fellowship with God. God has given His Holy Spirit to you. In this outpouring comes an awareness of God's love for you. You know and you experience this love of God for you. You know that God loves me. You know that God truly loves me. And does this make a difference in my life, knowing that God truly loves me? It certainly does make a difference. We see this in Luke 19. What a difference it makes. We have here the parable of the master who gave gifts of money to his various servants for them to use and invest. And one of these servants took what was given to him and hid it in a towel, wrapped up and put it in the earth, dug a hole and put it in the field. And then that servant came in verse 20, saying, Lord, here is your mean, here's the money you gave me, about maybe a quarter of a year's salary, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief. Lord, here's what you gave to me, and I hid it. And here, Master, I brought it back, what you gave me. And then he says awful words in verse 21. He says, for I was afraid of you because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow. I knew you were a hard man, so I buried it in the field. Now the master here is the Lord Jesus, isn't it? Certainly this is the Lord Jesus. And we understand this, don't we? Have you maybe some time thought about God as a hard man? Many people think of God that way. They think that that God's a hard man and a severe man and they make up those funny and wicked names for Him and talk about the man upstairs, you know, you see the picture of some big boss there that peers out the window and looks at you and frowns at you all day. And I think that's truly sad that a believer would think this about our Heavenly Father. I think that's awful. that we would think for a moment that God is a hard man. You know, He's not a hard man. He's giving you the Holy Spirit. He's poured His love into your heart. He has made His love known to you in a personal way, not just in a generic way. And if we understand that our Father loves us, that God loves us, if we understand that, and we begin to think this way, that God truly loves me, this is going to bring a sweetness into your fellowship with Him that will be produced no other way. And sometimes, as I observe Christians, and they don't delight in fellowship with God, and they don't love to worship God, and I think, are you sitting there afraid of Him? Because you think God's a severe man? Are you like this servant here that's saying that, well, I'm scared that you take what you did not deposit and you reap what you did not sow? Are you blind to the love of Calvary? Yet you say you're a believer, but yet there is not an overflow because when God's love is poured out into our hearts and we understand His great love, for us, then John says that we love Him back, because He first loved us. That love flows, it overflows, and it flows heavenward. And I hope that you're not blind to the love of God, because if you're blind to the love of God, your worship is going to be empty and forced. and cold and dull. You know, God has given you everything He has. He really has. God gives His love to you. God gives the Holy Spirit to you. God gives His dear Son to you, the Son of His love to you. And I hope that you understand something of the Father's love for you. I hope you do. God is not loving you reluctantly. He's not reluctant in His love. You know, don't think for a moment that, well, Jesus loves me, but I'm not sure about God. Do you know that God doesn't love you because Christ died for you? Christ died for you because the Father loves you. It's that way, it's not the other way. Jesus was not twisting God's arm to get Him to love us on the cross, but Jesus was on the cross because the Father loves us. If the Father had not loved us, He never would have sent His Son for us. The Father loves me. And so the outpoured love of the Son and the outpoured love of the Spirit are actually the love of the Father poured out for us. And if we grasp this, it will make a difference in our fellowship with God and how we commune with Him. A pastoral word here. Brothers and sisters, you don't need to make an individual personal sound. That is, you don't need to say something yourself as an individual in our first service in order to worship. I'm clear on that. I have no question on that. But judge your own heart. Is there an overflow of love to the Father in our time of worship? Some people, they bellow out the Amen. Some squeak it out. Some sort of say it under their breath. Some just think it. But say it! Think it! Respond! Be involved! Don't be a passive onlooker in an opportunity to worship our great God. We're not to come to worship with empty hearts and empty minds. We're to bring a treasure. We're to bring a gift. We're to bring with joy to the Master something of what the Master has given to us. If you are unacquainted with the love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, your life is going to be heavy. Your Christian life is going to be burdensome. And you're not going to delight in communion with the Father. Well, we could say more about that. A word about our attitude and the atmosphere of our Christian life. And I've already spoken about this, that there's a tone in our life, just like there's tone in music. There's sometimes we talk to our to our kids and we say well, you know I don't like your tone of voice and we know what that means. Don't we? Well the attitude of the Christian life and Serving God should be an attitude of joy and delight and not an attitude of obligation and duty it should be a joy for us to serve and It should be a joy for us to consecrate ourselves to the service of God. There should be a joy in our religion. Our religion is not to be like cold steel. You know, you can have good steel, and it's perfect steel, and it's strong steel, and you can make stuff out of it, but it's so cold. That should not be a picture of our Christian service. There should be some warmth. There should be affection. There should be a sweetness that comes into our lives as we understand the love of the Father for us. Maybe we could call it an aroma. The aroma of peace and joy. When the love of God is poured into our hearts, Our love for Him, it's not forced, it's not duty, but it is delight. And then one other matter, and this is the last. I'm afraid that missing this, missing understanding this love of God for us, It has the potential of making us less than honest about ourselves. You know, if we're unsure of God's love for us, we're going to do our best to put on the best face we've got and to put our best foot forward every time. because our acceptance and our appreciation is so contingent upon how good we are. But if we understand that God loves us out of His own resources, we can be before God perfectly honest concerning our own neediness and our own weakness and our own sin. It's part of our human nature to have people think good about us. That's part of who we are. The problem is that that carries over when we consider God as well. You know, we want God to think good of us. God knows the truth about me. He really does. He knows it all. And I don't have to protect myself from God because God loves me. Do you understand that? I don't need to put on, hurry about and dust the room quick because God's coming. I don't have to pick up the toys quick. I don't have to put the laundry in the laundry room and slam the door shut quick because God's coming. God's love is not based upon my perfections or my lack of perfections. And so we hesitate to acknowledge, and I'm not talking about for others, and I tell you, I just don't care for confession meetings where people all the time are making a big deal out of the ugliness of their sin in the public assembly. Do that with God. We don't need to hear that. But we need to be willing to honestly confess how ugly and sinful we are You know, and we hesitate because we're afraid of rejection, aren't we? The psychological counselors say, and I know this from talking recently over the last number of months with some of the men and women from the prison, they say, you need to learn to love yourself, and that will cure your injured psyche. You need to accept yourself. That's not the gospel way. That's not the gospel way. There's nothing in here about learning to love yourself. You need to learn the gospel way is to learn that God loves you. That's the gospel way and that will cure that fear of rejection. The gospel way is to realize that we are ugly and needy and we're worse than what we think we are. And the answer's not for me to somehow learn to love myself. That gives me a huge excuse to ever submit to the changing power of the Holy Spirit. It's what that does. It's a way for me to cop out that, well, you know, I've learned to love myself the way I am, so I'm never going to change. God is going to change all of His children. He's going to make us like Jesus. That's His priority for us. but to learn that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever is sinful and weak and despised and ugly, that whoever comes to trust in Him might have eternal life. The Gospel says you can't change yourself, but there are resources that will and can make you new. It's called, He's called the Holy Spirit. He's called Jesus. And then, and I think this is marvelous, as you learn of the love of God, then you forget about yourself. You finally, you don't think about yourself so much because you're thinking about Him. How many people that have grown up in very difficult circumstances have have thought and said that, you know, when I became a believer, I finally came to understand that I'm loved. And they discover it right there. Maybe they didn't have a father or mom or family or friends that truly loved them. And then they come out of that mess, they come to God and they learn something about the love of God and they realize for the first time in their life, that God loves me just like I am. He loves me. He loves me first. He loves me last. He loves me enough to change me, to transform me. And so we're delivered from the need to make excuse about our sin. And this is exactly what Paul says in verses six, seven, and eight. When we were weak, when we're ungodly, while we were still sinners, God showed His love for us. Have you had at least a taste of that in your life? If so, it's a taste that will keep bringing you back for more and more. Let's pray. Our dear God, we hardly know how to close, how to conclude this. But to ask you to make your love known to us more clearly, capture our hearts and our minds, Lord. I pray, Father, that where one of your children may be here today is struggling with thoughts of harshness and hardness towards you, that you would melt that away, that you would awaken in each of our hearts this awesome sense of your love for us, and that we would know and be assured that you have given your Holy Spirit to us. You poured your love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. And I pray, Father, we would never, ever recover from the sense of gratefulness and joy in knowing that you love us. And then, Father, we might also pray that you would help each one of us to love one another in light of this, and help us in this, Lord. In Christ's name we pray, amen.