-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Welcome to the cafe today. Good to be here.
00:40 We are in a message series on brotherly love, the idea that we show God love when we love our brothers and sisters in Christ. And what a great message that God gives us that we need to live out what He’s commanded us to do, to live it out. We’re gonna look at this idea of following the commandments in our life and doing it joyfully here today.
01:02 Our text verse1 John 4:19 – 1 John 5: 3. We love him because he first loved us. Isn’t that true? If a man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.
01:31 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone that loveth him that begat loveth also, loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments.
01:46 For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and that his commandments are not grievous. That word commandments isn’t in the passage of Scripture here a lot. Let’s see we’ve got in one at least one, two, three, four, at least four mentions of the word commandment here.
02:05 And the idea is that we are commanded to love others as Christ loved us. And that is a picture of what Christ did for us when we sacrificially, when we charitably love others. Amen.
02:19 And that helps God see that we understand the sacrifice that he made by sending his only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins. It helps God see that we acknowledge that and understand that and are willing to live that out to our own detriment. You know if it pleased God for Christ to suffer, should we not suffer too with Christ? Paul writes about suffering with Christ, being dead with Christ as he died on the cross, and being new again.
02:49 Amen. And we are to live as new creatures in Christ. And that means the old creature has passed away.
02:54 But how do we do that? I think it starts with an understanding of why we should love the Father. You know a lot of Christians say oh I love God or I’m in love with God or I’m loving my relationship with God. But why? I mean have you ever asked yourself why do you love God? Why? 1 Peter 1:3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
03:20 That’s the God we’re talking about here, Father God, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And so we see here that God in abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope. He’d made us alive.
03:40 Amen. We were dead in trespasses and sins. See we were born, and even though we’re created by God, we are born dead.
03:47 We are born spiritually dead. In order to have the Holy Spirit living within us, in order to be saved, we must accept Christ as Savior. That means we need to be of the age of accountability to do so, to understand what it means to be a sinner and why we need Christ.
04:05 Why did Jesus have to die for us? You know the sin curse entered humanity when? With the very first man and woman on earth, Adam and Eve. Amen. They sinned, they transgressed, the sin curse came upon them and has been passed down for generation to generation.
04:19 The idea is very similar to something that’s hereditary. Maybe you have alcoholism that runs in the family and you have an alcoholic whose dad was an alcoholic or brother or whatever it is and it runs in the family. Well that sin curse runs in our human family.
04:33 We are all descendants of the first Adam. So that sin curse created a burden that we couldn’t bear, that we could not resolve on our own. It created a debt that we could not pay.
04:41 Amen. Everybody I think listening to the program is familiar with debt. What if somebody came knocking on your door and said, you owe me a hundred million dollars.
04:51 Now you may laugh for a while and then you may say, let me get my checkbook to be funny. But truly, more than likely, you won’t have that hundred million dollars to pay them now and you won’t have that in the future and there is no way you could earn that. And you know, short of a godly miracle, there’s nothing you can do.
05:11 And that is the sin curse in a nutshell, not to make light of it, but the sin curse is that we had a debt we couldn’t pay. The sin in our lives that passed down from Adam and Eve generation to generation had yoked us up with the devil and little g-god of this world and we had nothing we could do about it. We were in bondage.
05:26 The idea of being in bondage is imprisoned by sin. We’re imprisoned by sin and we become slaves to sin. People think they’re free when they live rebellious lives.
05:33 They are in more bondage than anybody. We are free in Christ, amen, when we’re saved. They are in bondage to sin.
05:39 Oh, they say, oh, who do I serve? I don’t serve God. No, you serve the devil, sir. Jesus rebukes, I believe it was the Pharisees and the scribes, when he tells them, you’re of your father, the liar, the devil, the little g-god of this world, Amen, and he’s the father of all lies and they serve him, Amen.
05:58 Oftentimes in the Bible, we’ll read about how Satan allowed this, how Satan allowed that, or a Satan was part of this and Satan was part of that. I see that in the book of Revelation I’m studying now. We see it all the time.
06:10 Well, what does that mean? That means that the devil has rule and reign over this world in a sense. He’s under the thumb of God, amen, he’s God’s devil, but he’s been loosed for a season and he has this world in bondage, in sin, because he beguiled and tricked Adam and Eve many thousands of years ago. And you say, brother Clark, is it still alive today? Oh, the sin curse is absolutely alive today.
06:35 And the only thing is that God provided a resolution. He broke the devil’s back at Calvary. He gave us a way to be saved.
06:42 And that way is, in God’s beautiful poetic manner, his only begotten Son Jesus. God said, I love you so much, I’m gonna give you my beloved Jesus, and He’s gonna be obedient to me, and He’s gonna serve me, and He’s gonna walk this earth for 33 and a half years, and He’s gonna be perfect and sinless, and He’ll die on the cross obediently and willingly, being crucified by man, sinful man, and I’ll raise Him up from the dead after three days. And that shedding of that perfect blood is the remission of sin for all that accept His free gift of salvation.
07:15 So we realize we love God because he solved or resolved the sin curse for those that accept his free gift of salvation. The sin curse created a need for a Savior, and God said, I’ll do it. I’ll provide.
07:29 And God knew that in his wisdom and knowledge before the earth was even created. So how does this work? We need to understand our need. Our salvation is by faith.
07:40 It’s by faith alone. It’s by grace alone, through faith alone, and Jesus Christ alone that we are saved. And this should breed love.
07:46 This should breed a celebratory love, a joyous a rejoicing love in your heart for God, for what Jesus did on the cross, because you realize that you’re set free from sin and death by the love of Christ. And so it was by the love of Christ, nothing that we did. The only thing we can do is just believe and have faith.
08:05 Abraham was justified by faith. We are justified by faith. Hebrews 11 goes into all of these great saints of God that were justified justified by faith, and many of them or all of them had not seen the promise fulfilled.
08:18 They had not seen heaven on earth. Amen. Maybe Enoch being taken away by God after 365 years, started to see heaven a little bit quickly.
08:27 But really, we hadn’t seen the promise. We lived by faith. And for Enoch, those 365 years before God took him, it was living by faith.
08:36 Abraham living by faith. Rahab living by faith. Noah living by faith, on and on and on, just believing.
08:46 And so this should breed a love in us, this faith that we have in what Christ did for us, this faith that God is true, and that His word is true, and that He is who he says He is, and He’s a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, out of Hebrews 11:6. We should then be thankful. We should be excited. We should be overwhelmed with gratitude for what God did for us.
09:04 We should love him deeply for freeing us. And, you know, the Bible says that no greater love hath man than this, that one die for another, something like that. And the idea is that when Jesus Christ died for us, it was the ultimate gift of love, and He’s given it to us, and we accept that free gift of salvation.
09:23 Oh, we’re saved, amen. But you have to accept it. If I knock on your door and say, hey, I’ve got a free gift, and I may look strange to you.
09:34 You may not know what I have in my hand. You may be suspicious. You probably would be.
09:43 And it may seem like a risk, or to go against what others would tell you to accept my free gift. But if you don’t accept it, and I offer it, does that mean that you have the free gift? No. If you close that door, you say no.
09:52 The Lord says He’s knocking at the door, right? And he’s there, amen. But you have to open that door, and you have to accept that free gift, and when you do, you’re freed from the bondage of sin. You’re freed from the second death.
10:09 Oh, how good is it to be freed from the second death? The Bible tells us, don’t fear who can kill the body, fear who can cast the body and the soul into hell, Amen. And so that second death, that’s the judgment which would send us to hell. The white throne judgment is reserved for those that reject Christ’s free gift of salvation.
10:27 So we should love God for freeing us from the bondage of sin. We should love God for freeing us from the second death, which is a very fearful and scary thing, amen. Eternal burning and hellfire, Amen, is not something fun.
10:39 I saw a picture of a building on fire in an email newsletter today, and it reminded me of what hell is gonna be like. A massive flame, Amen. Eternal burning.
10:48 Hell is a real place, Amen. It is real. It’s in the Old Testament.
10:53 It’s in the New Testament. Hell is a real place, and we need to wake up and understand that when we’re saved, we are saved from hell. We are also saved by God from an unfruitful life.
11:04 You know, have you ever thought about that? When Jesus Christ saved you and set you free, if you’re saved, or if you believe on Him today, when you become saved, that now you can live a fruitful life. Think about what good is a life not lived for God? What did it do? You get to the judgment and you say, well Lord, I didn’t live for you, but… and God will say what? What but? There is no righteousness outside of God. There is nothing good that anyone can do outside of Christ.
11:30 The Bible tells us that no good tree can bear bad fruit, and no bad tree, and a bad tree be one that was not living for Christ, could ever bear good fruit. You know, John 1:5 says we’re ignorant to this, and unless God opens our eyes, we need to thank God for opening our eyes, and love God for opening our eyes. John 1:5, and the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
11:51 Have you ever tried to witness to someone or talk to someone about Jesus that’s unsaved, that doesn’t know the Lord, a Savior, doesn’t have the Holy Spirit living within them? They’re spiritually dead, and they don’t comprehend it. Now you can’t argue them into salvation. You can plant the seed, and then the Lord can convict and save that person, but you can’t argue them into salvation.
12:12 You can’t intellectually teach them into salvation. The Lord has to open their eyes. The great example of this is Paul on the road to Damascus.
12:21 Well, he was Saul then, and he was blinded by the Lord, Amen. And that is a picture of how Saul was blinded to the truth, and then after what happened, Ananias came to see him, so forth, and he was given his sight back, right? And what happened? He could see, and now he could understand. Now he was no longer blind spiritually. He understood that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and he was given that special revelation that we, the Gentile people, those that are not Jewish, that believe on Christ, will be saved, shall be saved, eternally secure in Christ.
12:55 And so we need to thank God that the light shineth in darkness, the darkness comprehended it not, that the Lord has given us illumination over His Word, understanding, discernment. Only God can do that. Everything I’ve ever preached that makes any sense and that is acceptable to God was done by God.
13:14 He gave me the discernment over it. I take no credit for it. He gave me discernment.
13:17 Anything that you’ve ever understood from any of this preaching or Bible study or any other preaching is done by God. He gives you discernment over it. He gives you the light.
13:26 So you have to thank Him for that. You have to thank Him that you’re reconciled to God. You’re no longer at war with God.
13:31 You have peace with God. We’re in the ministry of reconciliation. When you’re saved, you have peace with God.
13:37 I could go on and on about why you should love God, and I guess the lesson here is it’s in His Word. As you open His Word and as you pray to Him to give you discernment over His Word, it will change your heart. It’ll soften your heart for His ways, and you will turn to love Him.
13:51 And as you turn to love Him, He’ll instruct you to go love your brothers and sisters in Christ. And that is the beautiful fruitful nature of serving God and loving God is that we have harmony and peace when we live for God. There is peace and joy in living for God.
14:06 Thank you so much for listening. Take care. God bless and Amen.