Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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A Divine Love for Us – Philippians 1:6-11

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Philippians 1:6–11

Good morning. How is everyone? Good. Let’s turn to the book of Philippians. Starting in verse 6, Philippians chapter 1.

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

(Philippians 1:6–11)

Opening Prayer

Thank you for us being able to gather with the saints today. We thank you, Lord, that we do have a communion with you, Lord, because of the sacrifice of your Son. We thank you, Lord, that we can gather as brothers and sisters in Christ and we have a unity and a commonality which centers around your Son. May we continue to enjoy that fellowship with one another and with you. We pray, God, that you would go before us, you would help, Lord, your word to continue to flourish in us, use your Spirit, fill us with him today to hear what you have for us. And we thank you for your word. It is a two-edged sword, Lord. Let it do its work on us. And may we yield it properly and for your glory. Amen.

Real quick, before I get into the sermon, after the service today, if I can, I want to talk to any families that have kids that are six and under, down in Narnia. It’ll just take like five minutes. So maybe a couple minutes after service if we can head down there. And we’ll talk just briefly. So if you have a kid, any kid, six and under, down in Narnia afterwards. All right, back in Philippians.

A Divine Love That Abounds

And this is Paul, and notice what he’s saying in verse 9 because it’s a prayer that we’re going to look at here, and it’s Paul’s prayer where he’s going to focus on a few qualities that he wants the Philippians to have in their life. And the first quality that we see is love. Notice what he says in verse 9. He says, “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment.” What kind of love do you think this is? It’s the agape love, which means it’s a divine love. And it means this love isn’t possible apart from God’s Spirit dwelling in you. Now, this word abound means to be present in abundance. It would be enough to say to abound more, but he doesn’t say that, does he? He says he wants it to abound more and more. In fact, some translations have one extra word. He wants it to still abound more and more. It is wording that he words it in such a way that it gives it the most dynamic expression possible. He doesn’t just want a little love, he wants this love abounding in us. What kind of love is it? It’s actually God’s love that he gives to us. So who does he want it to abound to? Well, in this context, so far, what have we seen in the first five verses? He’s talking about the partnership that the Philippians have with him. And so the context is a horizontal love. It’s the community of believers specifically, and then more widely that we display towards other people. So it’s a horizontal love. This divine love that God has for us, think about it for a moment. Why does it have to be divine? Because Paul’s praying for it to increase in us, and he’s asking God to give it to us. And if you think for a moment, we wouldn’t want a man-made love to increase in us, right? That wouldn’t be good. We wouldn’t want man-made love, so he is praying for the very love that God has for us to also increase in us so that we can display it to others. So he gives us a divine love. And here’s the thing, and this is important, he’s not trying to say, try to love each other more. No, what he’s saying is, let the divine love of God abound more and more in you. If you’re a believer, then God’s been gracious to pour out his love upon you, so you have his love, correct? You have his grace, his mercy, his righteousness, and you have his love, but Paul is saying, hey, I want to see that love increase. Now think of the fruit of the Spirit for a moment. Love, that’s the first one. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. But love is a fruit of the Spirit. It’s the first fruit listed. So who’s the one that gives us that love? It comes from God himself. And what does the Spirit do? It’s his fruit that he produces in us. He’s living in us, and just like he’s producing that other fruit, one of the fruits that he helps grow and that he helps flourish is love. Every believer should be growing in their love towards others. Every believer. You shouldn’t come to the point where you think, oh, I’m loving people enough. I’m doing really good in this love category. You shouldn’t think that. It’s good if you’re coming along in your love, but never think you’ve come to a place where you’ve arrived. You don’t get to the point where you stop and say, I have enough love. I’m good. No, you’re growing in this area. Right? You’re growing. So you don’t want to get to the point where you say, I’m loving enough. In one sense, we’ll never truly love enough. We’ll never truly love enough. Only God can perfectly love. Only God can have a love that is perfect and pure and righteous. We can mimic it, we can receive it, and we can continue to grow in it. But here’s the thing, it is not something that we stir up within ourselves. We don’t try to stir it. We don’t try to produce it. God is the one who produces it. He’s the one that gives it to us. And this love comes from the outside. It comes from the outside and it fills us. That’s why we ask the Lord for it. Paul is praying for the Philippians for them to have it in abundance. So he’s praying, and here’s two things to note. He’s praying that the quality of their love would increase, the quality and the generosity of their love. Love is not a static possession. It’s not just something that we’re holding. It’s very dynamic in its process. Why? Because it’s continually changing us. If you have agape love, it’s going to do something in you. It’s going to change you. And when you actually display agape love towards other people, it’s actually going to do one of two things. It will pull them towards you, or it will actually push them away. When God displays his love, and when he uses you to display it towards others, they’ll either be attracted to that love or they’ll be repulsed by it. Think of what Corinthians talks about. It’s an aroma. And to some it’s an aroma that leads to what? It leads to life. But to some it’s an aroma that what? It leads to death. Well, if you have an aroma that leads to life, you’re going to be attracted to that aroma, correct? But if there’s an aroma that leads to death, I mean, you ever smell it? You know, some people, they got bad taste in perfume. I’m just saying. Nobody here. Nobody here. But I, you should not be wearing that, ma’am. Okay? It just doesn’t smell good. All right? And you’re kind of like, okay, I’m moving back a little bit. I don’t want none of that on me. Well, I mean, that’s what it is with the aroma of death. Like that repulses people, some people. So when you’re displaying that agape love, it will have a reaction in other people. If you’re displaying it biblically, they’re either going to be attracted or repulsed. I mean, you can love people really well. And what happens? They’re mad at you and they hate you. Why? Because the biblical love of God will either attract people or they’ll see it and they’re repulsed by it. But it’s not something that we stir up in ourselves. That’s why we ask the Lord for it. So it’s an outside love that’s working on us and then working through us. And Paul is praying, again, for the quality of the love and the generosity of the love to increase.

A Willful Love, Not an Emotion

So this divine love, let’s make a couple notes. One, it’s not emotion. It’s not emotion. It’s not passion. God did not love us. Listen to me. God did not love us because he saw us and was like, oh wow, they’re pretty amazing. I mean, he didn’t say that’s why I wanted to love you because they’re so awesome. It’s true. Look at, keep your place in Philippians. Look at Deuteronomy. I want you to see this for yourself. Deuteronomy chapter 7. This is the Lord talking to the Israelites. He says in verse 6:

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

(Deuteronomy 7:6–8)

So what’s he saying here? Again, look back at it. It was not because you were more in number, verse 7, that the Lord set his love on you. Okay, so it wasn’t external things. It wasn’t something that you had. So why does he love? Well, verse 8, he loves you because he loves you, meaning he chooses to love. He chooses. It was his choice. It’s a willful love. It chooses to love. And think about it. What’s lovable in us? I mean, what’s lovable in us? Look at Ephesians 2. Let’s see if there’s anything lovable in us. Ephesians 2, verse 1: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” Is that lovable? Sins, trespasses, that’s not lovable. “Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” So, I mean, you’re following Satan. Is that lovable? That’s not lovable. “Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” So apart from Christ, we’re all, it says, by nature, children of wrath. That’s not lovable. So what happens? What happens? I mean, we’re enemies. We’re enemies of God. We’re enemies of Christ. Romans 5:8, but God. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were, verse 1 here, dead in our trespasses. While we once followed the prince of the power of the air. While we were following our passions of the flesh. While we were carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. While we were by nature children of wrath. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So God sees us and he chooses to love us, not because of who we are, but in spite of who we are. And be careful of having a romanticized view. You see it in some worship songs. We don’t sing them here, but some worship songs. They’re more geared toward God having a romantic love for us than an agape love for us. It’s like, you know, he’s so overcome with himself that he just can’t help it. No, that’s like teen love, okay? That’s not agape love. Think about the world’s love for a moment. It’s conditional. It’s very conditional. Like, what can you do for me? What can you give me? What can I get out of it? It’s very emotion-driven. What does the husband say when he comes home and tells his wife he’s divorcing her? He says, I don’t love you anymore. Well, what’s he saying? You know, the passion is gone, the emotion is gone, but that’s not a biblical love. He’s saying, I don’t have feelings for you. My desire is gone. That’s not how God’s love works. It’s not how it works. God’s love is a willful love. He doesn’t base it on emotions or feelings. And he didn’t choose to love us because of what we could do for him or what we could give him or what he could get out of it. So it’s not an emotional attraction. Listen, there’s nothing attractive in us. He loves us because he chooses to love us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” This is the love that God wants us to have for others. A divine love from God’s own resource. It’s not possible on your own. The only reason we can love God, the only reason we can love others is because God first loved us. 1 John 4:19, we love because what? He first loved us. Which means what? One, you can be confident there’s an ample supply. If it’s God’s love and all his attributes are eternal, they’re infinite, they’re never-ending, then we know we have an ample supply of his love. You’re like, I need the love of the Lord. Yes, absolutely. And he will pour it out on you and pour it out on you and pour it out on you. And you see it displayed throughout the Scriptures and you see it displayed in other people’s lives and you see it displayed in your life. So you can be confident there’s an ample supply. He’s not going to run out. He has more than enough for you. But two, it doesn’t depend on you to conjure it up. It’s not like there’s some formula and you put X together with Y and you end up with God’s love. No, it doesn’t depend on you to conjure it up. He gives you the agape love. He fills you with it and then you act on it. This love again is a love of choice or will. You can choose to love people. You can choose to love people. Even your worst enemy, I mean God commands us to do what? Love our enemies. Is this possible in our own strength? Absolutely not. But people that you don’t think you can possibly stand, and you know, Uncle Fred, who always shows up on holidays and just irks you, no, it’s possible to love him. And your neighbor who’s driving you crazy, no, it is possible to love him. Not because it’s something you conjure up in yourself, because God pours out his love on you, and he gives you that love to display to others. So this love is what you do, not what you feel. Think about it. You can choose to love people. It doesn’t have to be based on anything they’ve done to earn your love. God loved you and you didn’t do anything to earn his love. Therefore, you can take that same agape love and display it to other people and love them. They don’t have to be worthy of it. You weren’t worthy of God’s love. You love because you choose to love. That is imitating the Lord. So it’s what you do, not what you feel. It is what you say, not what you think. It’s love your neighbor.

Love Your Neighbor

Think of the parable of the Good Samaritan. You have the priest. You have the Levite. A guy gets beat up by the robbers, and they leave him for dead, essentially, on the side of the road, and what happens? The priest comes down, and what does the priest do? He just passes on by. And then the Levite comes, and what does he do? He passes on by, but then the Samaritan comes. I mean, the Jews, they despised the Samaritans. They were like, you know, half-breeds. They were a mix of Jews and Gentiles, and they despised them. They thought they were compromised. They thought they had no part in the kingdom, yet Jesus uses this in his parable. This Samaritan comes. And what does the Samaritan do? He takes him. He bandages him up, takes him to an inn. He’s like, whatever else charges there are, put it on my account, I’ll take care of it when I come back. And then what does Jesus ask? Which one was a neighbor? Which one loved his neighbor? And what’s the answer? The Samaritan. How do we know what we’re supposed to do in situations like that? Well, you love and you display the love as opportunity arises. I mean, if you think about it for a moment, in Exodus, I think it’s Exodus 23. Yeah, Exodus 23. Hear what it says in verse 4: “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him.” I mean, that’s kind of the love-your-neighbor principle, right? I mean, it’s not even the person. Your enemy’s ox has gone astray. You’re going to bring it back. Verse 5: “If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.” I mean, that’s the love-your-neighbor principle. But think back to the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Levite and the priest who knew this passage, very possible they had it memorized. And they know, okay, if the animal is in trouble of my worst enemy, I’m still supposed to help. Yet, there’s a man who’s beaten up and they’re like, no. No love of neighbor. Well, certainly in the Old Testament we’re commanded to do this, like what’s the principle? Love your neighbor. Even your neighbor’s property, even your neighbor’s items, even your neighbor’s stuff, like you’re supposed to look out for the interests of others. We’re going to get to that in Philippians too, but that’s the principle. Look out for others’ interests. So yeah, your neighbor has something going on. I mean, it’s even something as small as like, you know, you look out sometimes, oh, your neighbor left his lights on in his car. Well, who wants to come out in the morning to a dead battery, right? So you go knock on a door, you text him or something, just something like that. Do you have an obligation to do it? I would say yes, you do. Love your neighbor. How do you love your neighbor? That’s his donkey, so to speak. It’s under a burden, the little light. Love your neighbor. The greatest testimony we have is that we love each other.

You know, when we—Justus, Mike Smith, and I—were in Belize this past weekend for Pastor Smith’s funeral. And they do funerals a little different down there. But part of the funeral, so the day of the funeral is very much like our funeral. But afterwards, everyone goes to the gravesite, like everyone. You know, back here, I don’t know how, you know if it’s like 50-50 if people go or not, but it’s not necessarily expected. Usually the close family will go to the gravesite. Sometimes there’s not even a graveside, that part, right? But in Belize, like everyone goes. And there is about, I’d say 150–200 people at the funeral. It’s a pretty large funeral. And so we, you know, processed to the gravesite. Well, we had been told that we’re just going to sing a couple songs at the funeral gravesite, and then the service will be done. And it’s actually kind of neat because all the graves there are above ground. It’s very uncommon to bury, in part because you’re so close to the sea. So it’s like, you know, kind of like a sarcophagus. And then there’s the one side is open and they slide the coffin in there. And then we sing songs as they close up. You know, there’s a guy there with, you know, concrete stones. He’s got a little bucket of water. Thankfully, he already had his mortar mixed, right? And we’re just singing and he places the stone and mortar, mortar, mortar, and next stone. But I mean, he’s taking great skill and great care as he’s putting this together. So he’s not just slapping it on there, right? I mean, you could tell he’s very much mastered his skill. So I mean, he’s tapping it, he’s got a little level. Well, those couple songs ran out real quick, okay? It was more like an hour of singing. We learned that “a couple” doesn’t mean like two in Belize, okay? Which was fine and it was good, except like the sun was beating down on us and I think like the UV level was 11. So the three white people that were there, Justus, me, and Mike Smith, we weren’t white after that, okay? We were red, and you can probably still see a little bit on my forehead. We got very toasty. As we were leaving, the whole thing ends. I actually kind of liked it because, I mean, you talk about closure, like literally, but there’s closure, right? Seeing him put into the tomb and there’s closure. I wish we did something like that back here. They used to, right? You know, you put the coffin into the ground and put the dirt on it. We’re too fast-paced, right? We ain’t got no time for an hour worth of songs. I mean, that’s kind of American culture. It’s unfortunate. So, but as we’re leaving, so we get back into the car and we’re leaving and we see, we just, [audio unclear] chest to kind of rise a little bit, there’s no movement at all. So we’re coming up upon him and he’s kind of like, I mean he looks a little, it’s not just like, oh I’m going to take a little nap here. Now he clearly something happened and he just collapsed. As we’re coming up, finally his chest moves a little bit. And thankfully we had a couple other pastors that had gotten out of their car as well, of course, and so they were helping him. We had everything possible that he could have wanted. I mean we had water, we could have gotten him some food, we called the ambulance, we were wanting to help dust him off. He slowly starts coming about, he’s kind of dazed and confused and very much inebriated. Very, very, very drunk. So he’s dehydrated very likely and drunk. We’re trying to help him and he doesn’t want any help. No help, no help. We’re going to call the, [audio unclear] but no, no, no, no. Then his friend from down the street comes over. And his friend is like, I’m going to call your brother. No, no, no, no, no. Don’t call my brother. Don’t call my brother. Don’t call my brother. He will be very upset with me. Okay, I’m going to call your mom. No, no, no. Don’t call my mom. Don’t call my mom. She will give me a tongue lashing. Don’t call my mom. Like, he didn’t want any help. We’re trying to, we’re in the blazing sun. And we’re trying to carefully scoot him out of the sun, kind of get him seated. We want to, you know, literally like wash off, he was bleeding. We wanted to clean him. Nope. Didn’t want any help. No help whatsoever. Just wanted us to essentially just leave. So we prayed with him. He let us pray with him. He actually prayed for us. And then we prayed for him. But listen, brothers and sisters, I mean, one, that is a good example of how we can be sometimes. Like a lot of help can be offered us and we can reject it completely. And truth be told, we’re very much like that man that fell, just collapsed, you know, and we had to kind of like unmangle his leg from the bicycle. Thankfully, it wasn’t broken or anything. He was just kind of twisted in there funny. We’re very much like that. I mean, and even the Lord comes to us and he’s like, I want to help, I want to help. And what do we do? We reject it. We reject it. And he has everything we could possibly need. And what do we do? We reject it and we reject it and we reject it. And he wants to help. He wants to help. He wants to pour out his grace and mercy on us. So what happens? People are hurting and your brothers or sisters come and they want to help, they want to minister to you, what do we do? We reject it. Like, why do we do that? I mean, seriously, why do we do that? I mean, at these we’re prideful, we’re not willing to humble ourselves. We just, we think we can do it on our own. We kind of have like a lone ranger mentality. We don’t need others. No, God opposes the proud, right? He opposes the proud. Who does he give grace to? The humble. The humble. Pride keeps a lot of people out of heaven. It keeps a lot of people out of heaven. They’re not willing to humble themselves before the Lord. What does Jesus tell us in John 13? “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” If you have love for one another, so people know from the love, well, how are they going to know it? We have to display it. We have to walk in love. We have to display it. We have to show it. How do we do it? Whoever comes into our path, that’s who God has brought. That’s who we need to display the love to. There is very possibly other people in Belize that day that were inebriated and fell off their bicycle. Hopefully not many. Now, who am I called to help? The one the Lord puts in my path, right? I mean, that’s who he put in my path. That’s who I help. The Lord brings people into your path to help. Yeah, that’s your neighbor. That’s the point of Jesus’ parable, right? The Levite and the priest didn’t live next to that guy that got beat up. But that was their neighbor. This is the foundation for the culture that Paul is planting and wants.

A Culture of Love

Listen, a strong church culture built on love is so important. It’s so important. Cultures matter. We’re called the salt of the earth. What does salt do? It prevents decay and it preserves what’s present. So prevents and preserves. Consider the following, like this love wasn’t meant to stay contained in the church. We’re supposed to display, how do they know that we’re his disciples? Well, by our love, well, again, we have to display the love. Where was this church supposed to go? Is this love supposed to be contained in the walls of the church? No, it’s supposed to spread. The benefit of flourishing in this love is the expansion of the gospel and gospel culture to others. I mean, look at what’s happened to our culture. In 30 years, the last 30 years, like our culture has radically changed, radically changed. And the love of many is growing cold. And the truth be told, the church is to blame. I mean the church is to blame. The downward spiral happens fast. But do you know what that means? It can be reversed pretty quickly. By God’s grace and mercy it can be reversed pretty quickly. We’ve been given a reprieve by God for a few years. Let’s not get lax or ease up. Now is the time to push forward even more with the gospel. We should be bolder. We should have that love. What does that love do? It makes us bold. It makes us want to share with people. We should have the salt that we are to prevent decay and preserve what’s there. Sometimes you hear some pastors talking about, oh churches should be more about what we’re for than what we’re against. I mean, the problem is, I mean, that sounds good on face value, but the problem is that any time you’re for something, well, you’re against the opposite, right? So if we’re for love, for biblical agape love, I mean love, biblical love, speaks the truth. It speaks the truth. Yet that’s not very popular today to speak the truth. But it speaks the truth. It stands for the truth. It loves its neighbor as himself. But it’s not loving to tell people it’s okay to chop off your body parts. That’s not loving. It’s not loving to tell people that God doesn’t mind if they murder their babies. That’s not loving. So we’ve harmed our witness as a church by not addressing these issues, and churches have become puny and spineless. We are for biblical love, which tells people the truth. I mean, you’re sharing the gospel with people. One of two things is going to happen. They’re going to be attracted to it. They’re going to be repulsed by it. But telling people you need Jesus, that’s a very loving thing to do. Telling people that you perish apart from Jesus. If we really believe that, if we really think that’s the truth, that’s a loving thing to do. So I want to encourage us, we want to surround ourselves with a culture that inculcates that biblical love. Church cultures are important. Very important. Church cultures are very important. Every church has a culture. Not all church cultures are the same. Not all emphasize the same things. But think about it for a moment. When I’m around others that love, what does that encourage me to do? I mean, it encourages me to love. Even if you’ve been in here, just take like, for example, worship. And maybe sometimes you’re like, oh, I’m not really feeling like worshiping. But you look across the room, or you look a couple rows ahead, and I mean, you can tell someone’s really engaged in worship. What does that help you do? It helps you engage, it should. Like you’re seeing it modeled, you’re like, oh yeah, John, he’s like, he’s really engaged in worship. Like, that’s what I want. And it sets an atmosphere, if you will. But the same is true with love. If you’re around people that are loving, and loving and loving, what does that encourage you to do? Encourages you to love. I mean, it’s like the opposite principle of bad company corrupts what? Good morals. I mean, if you’re around people and they’re not loving and they’re being rude and disrespectful and using language and talking vile, does that affect you? Yeah, it does, it does. So choose company wisely, right? I mean, that’s the company that needs to be saved, that’s who we’re going to. But it’s like, you want to make sure that you’re in an environment that encourages the things that the Lord himself encourages. You want to place yourself around those people. I mean, sometimes you see people and you’re attracted to those people, not romantic attraction, but just like, man, that person is going places and doing things, and they’ve got a goal. Or you’re attracted, this person, you know, they’re very well read and they’re very knowledgeable and they can take the Bible and apply it very well and that’s attractive. You’re like, man, I’m attracted to that. But what does that encourage you to do? I mean, it kind of encourages you to just step up your game. And you see people serving, you hear about, oh, someone’s serving or maybe they’ve given, someone needed some help financially and you’re like, man, I need to do that too. I mean, it encourages you. There’s no shame, but it encourages, you’re seeing it modeled and it encourages you to model the same. You see negative stuff modeled. I mean, your tendency is going to be to model the negativity. I mean, this is why, parents, it’s so important in your home to make sure you’re modeling an atmosphere of gospel truth and love, because that’s what your kids are at least naturally, by God’s grace, going to be wanting to adopt. But if it’s all negativity and yelling and screaming and shouting and cursing, I mean, that’s what your kids are growing up in. You don’t think that affects them? No, it very much so does. So if you want your kids bathed in gospel truth, then your house needs to be that aroma, very much filled with the aroma of Christ.

How do we do this? I mean, we’re seeing it encouraged. Sometimes it’s just as simple, brothers and sisters, as doing exactly what Paul’s praying for the Philippians. What is it? He’s praying. He’s praying for the love to increase. And that’s what you should do for yourself and for others, but for yourself. You should be praying. If you want biblical prayers to pray, just open up the first letter or the first chapter of all Paul’s letters, and John, usually it starts with a prayer. And you can pray those prayers. They’re biblical prayers. So yeah, you should pray regularly for your love to increase. Oh, help me to love Uncle Fred because he’s a pain. Help me to love him. You think the Lord won’t answer that? He’ll answer that. So I mean you have the biblical prayer, that’s what you should pray. Ask the Lord for this love. He’s got enough of it. There’s ample supply of the love of the Lord. There’s also ample supply for him to give it to those who don’t yet believe.

The Gospel

And the gospel, the good news, gospel just means good news, it’s really simple. It’s very simple. So simple, even a young child can understand the gospel. The good news is this, that God sent his own Son to die on the cross for your sins. You deserved the punishment. We’ve been talking about by nature, children of wrath. We are rebels to God from the day we are born. We don’t want his ways. We don’t want his truth. But what does God do? He sends his Son on a rescue mission for us. He wants to rescue us from the wrath that is coming. So what does he do? He sends his Son to rescue us. Jesus lives the perfect life for about 30 years. And then what’s his reward? Well, the people get jealous of him at the time and they put him to death. But here’s the thing, that was God’s plan all along. Because the reward for Jesus was actually to redeem people for his own pleasure. That was the reward for Jesus. He covenanted. He agreed with the Father to come to the earth to pay the penalty for your sins. For your sins. For the wages of sin is death, the Bible says, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. So our payment for our sin, it’s death. And it says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All have sinned. You, me, everyone, but God offers eternal life to you. How do you take it? If you walked up to any person on the street and we’re like, hey, do you want eternal life? Like probably 99% of people are going to say yes. True? Who doesn’t want to live forever? So God offers the gift of eternal life. He offers it to us. How do we take it? Well, the sin has to be dealt with. Our rebellion to God has to be dealt with. We have to wave the white flag and say, I surrender. I surrender. And you have to humble yourself and admit that you need him. Admit that you need what Jesus did applied to you. Admit that what Christ did was more than enough. He was crucified. God’s wrath was poured out upon him. They put him into the tomb, three days later, he rose. What does that show? Victory over the grave. Victory. He conquered death, and therefore, he can hand you the keys to life. He can hand it to you. He says, I lay down my life, and it’s mine to take up again. This is what Jesus did for you. So how do you receive that gift of eternal life? It’s through trusting in what Jesus did for you. You trust in Jesus. You can know a lot of things about Jesus. You can know information about the Bible, but you have to trust. That’s the key. You have to trust. The Bible says you’re saved by grace through faith. God pours out his grace through the vehicle or the instrument of faith, and that’s how you’re saved. Not by works, it says in Ephesians 2, so that no one can boast. It’s not about what you can do. You wouldn’t want to be judged on a scale. You will be found wanting greatly. We sin grievously against the Lord. So you have to come before him. First, forsake your sinful ways. That fancy word is repent, and turn away from those things and turn to the Lord. Repent and believe is what the Bible says over and over and over again. If you do that, then God, he does more than just give you eternal life. He actually adopts you into his family. John 1:12, to all who believed in him, to those who received him, he gave the right to become children of God. So you trust in him. He adopts you into his family. You’re part of the family of God. That’s why we use the term brothers and sisters. Why? Because we’re all God’s children. And this idea of love that we see rooted in a church community, rooted in the Philippians, that can be more expounded in the book of Philippians, but that is like the heartbeat of church. It should be. And so yes, we have a unity, we have a commonality, but what is that grounded in? It is grounded in Christ. But what is the thing that God displayed? He displayed his own love for us, right? While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So the love there is that foundation built upon the rock of Jesus Christ. That’s the love that we can display towards others. A love not from ourselves, but that God gives. Think about that. You can have and display a divine love towards other people, if you’re a believer. I mean, that’s powerful. You can love people in a way that’s not possible in your own strength because of what God did and because of what he gives you. The worst of the worst of the worst of your enemies, you can love them and you’re called to. But it’s possible because of what God did in Christ for us. Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

Thank you, Father, that you poured out your love upon us in your Son Jesus, that it is in him we have life. Lord, help us to receive these words and let them be planted. I pray that Satan would not snatch them away, but let us receive it. Let us walk in it. Lord, all of us have some challenging people in our lives that are tough to love. Help us to love them well. Help us to have an agape love for them. Help us. Lord, we ask, we pray that you would increase our love for those people, that we would display it to them. Not tolerate them, but love them. We would be like Christ to them, that we would choose to love. We thank you that’s possible because of the love you’ve given us and that you’ve poured out upon us. Amen.