Transcribed by Beluga AI.
Let me read from Psalm 86 and then we’ll pray once more.
Psalm 86:1. Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am godly. Save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God.
1 Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. 2 Preserve my life, for I am godly; save your servant, who trusts in you—you are my God. 3 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all the day. 4 Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. 5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. 6 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace.7 In the day of my trouble I call upon you,for you answer me.8 There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. 9 All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. 10 For you are great and do wondrous things;you alone are God.11 Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. 12 I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. 13 For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. 14 O God, insolent men have risen up against me; a band of ruthless men seeks my life, and they do not set you before them. 15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. 16 Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant, and save the son of your maidservant. 17 Show me a sign of your favor, that those who hate me may see and be put to shame because you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me. (Psalms 86:1-17, ESV)
Okay, let’s pray.
We ask, O Lord, that you speak to us. We want to focus today on what you’ve done for us. Not what we do for you, but what you’ve already done for us, what you continue to do for us, who you are. We want to respond to you properly. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
We’ve been speaking about a child of God. What do you think a child of God is like, primarily? What does a child of God, or even an earthly child, need to receive from their parents, or in our case, a Heavenly Father? What is the number one thing that we need to know and receive from our Heavenly Father and our earthly parents?
Anybody? Well, I’ll read one additional verse or two. And then I’ll ask again.
1 John 4:17 to 19
17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:17-19, ESV)
So I want to ask again, what is the number one thing as children of God that we need to receive from our Heavenly Father? Love. Love.
Before you knew the love of God, weren’t we all striving in this world? Maybe even as a part of your family? You always felt like you were not good enough because you were told to study and to give straight A’s. And if you got a B that stands for “bad,” you didn’t do well this semester. you’re failing at life.
And isn’t that, isn’t there this underlying pressure that you’re not loved and that you have to prove yourself and you have to earn your worth? And that’s a lifelong battle, isn’t it?
It’s not just for students who are going for their degree. Even after you get your job, your job is not enough. You got to prove yourself because, okay, it was good enough as a 22-year-old. But if you’re in your 30s and you’re doing the same thing, you’re going to feel like there is something not quite right.
I’m not received well by this world. I don’t feel good about myself. I need to prove myself again. It’s a battle with: Are we loved?
I remember when I was 19 years old, for the first time in my life, I encountered the unconditional love of my Heavenly Father in Christ. And it just set me free. Because for 19 years I lived unworthy. I lived as if I am less than. I lived as if I have to strive and to prove and to beat others, compete. And of course, there’s no end to that.
But finally, in the arms of my Heavenly Father, I could receive the unconditional love of God. And it was so freeing. And I, and I stayed in that state of the unconditional love of the Heavenly Father for the first few years of my Christian life. And it was a sweet, sweet time.
Nobody had to tell me to read my Bible. Nobody had to tell me to pray, nobody had to tell me to evangelize. It just overflowed because I was receiving this love of the Heavenly Father.
And as we get back to 1 John 4:17-19. It says,
17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. (1 John 4:17, ESV)
So when we see God face to face, are you 100% sure that you are loved and you can be confident on that day? How many people are 100% sure? Okay, there’s a handful. That’s great.
On my good days, I’m 100% sure. Today I’m about 70% because I’m struggling to believe this.
And we see it in Scripture, we’ve heard about it our whole lives, that you don’t have to strive, you don’t have to earn, you don’t have to do anything. You just have to receive, you have to believe.
And it’s interesting as we send off missionaries who feel like, okay, we’re doing this and we need to do this, and all of us who are missionaries or sending off missionaries, we have to first see what God has done. God has done this for us. He sent Jesus to die on a cross.
All the heavy lifting has been done, and we just have to receive, we have to believe this. As it says in Ephesians 1:18, the eyes of our heart have to be enlightened.
18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, (Ephesians 1:18, ESV)
And then Ephesians 3:18 as well. It says we need strength to comprehend with all the saints the height, the breadth, the length, the depth of the love of God.
18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, (Ephesians 3:18, ESV)
So these things that we read in Scripture and on our good days, we believe. There are many stretches, I think. I don’t think I’m the only one who struggles with believing that I am truly loved in this way, that I am a beloved child of God.
And I love Apostle John because he describes himself as a beloved child of God. You don’t think of Apostle John as a ministry machine like Paul is the pastor, the missionary, the church planter. When you think of Paul, you think of faith. You think of the Book of Romans, theology, you think of ministry and output and external fruit.
But when you look at John, he is just. He’s just putting his head at Jesus’ bosom, just asking, because he’s so secure in that love. And I so want to imitate Apostle John’s expression of faith. He understands he is a beloved child of God.
And how is Jesus ascribed by the Father when he is being baptized? He is a beloved Son of God. What about at the Mount of Transfiguration? How does God describe Jesus, the beloved Son of God? This really gets at the heart. Like, if we understood this, all striving would cease. We have to receive this, and this is a spiritual thing.
We need strength to comprehend. We need something to be enlightened. We need a light switch to come on. We need our eyes to open. We can’t just read this and put it to memory and think, okay, I understand it. I agree with it. Therefore, I’m now going to live out of it. It simply doesn’t work that way. I can’t read. It’s almost like I’m grasping at sand. I know what I understood at age 19, 20, 21, before I was thrust into church work and ministry and ordination and church planting and becoming a pastor.
I knew it’s like sand that’s slipping through my fingers. I understand what I had at age 19, 20, 21, that. That I did nothing to earn this. God did everything. And I just received it. And I was so free.
Satan wants to blind us to this truth that even if you don’t do missions, even if you don’t lift a finger, this truth is unchanging, that God is steadfast in his love. His love overflows to us, and his perfect love drives out all fear. Fear of, am I going to be accepted by God? Is he angry with me? Fear has to do with punishment. Is he that kind of God that one day I’m reading my devotions and reading my Bible and I’m praying a lot and he approves of me?
But this past week I was a little bit lazy. I was stumbling, and now the stick has come out, and now he’s punishing me, and maybe he will banish me to purgatory, and I have to earn my way back into heaven. Is he that kind of a God who is so fickle? His love is not steadfast.
He is back and forth. He loves you one day because you’re doing well. He doesn’t love you the next day because you’re doing poorly. Is it that kind of a fickle God who is so whimsical, so unpredictable? He doesn’t love you with a steadfast love.
We need our eyes, our heart enlightened. We need strength to comprehend the height, the depth, the breadth, the length of the love of God. It is not something we can just study and understand. We need spiritual strength. Holy Spirit needs to come and open up eyes and drive this truth into our hearts so that we can grasp it. So that we don’t have it in a moment, just like sand, like water just slips out. We need strength to hold onto this, to grab hold of it.
You know, as missionaries, that we might think, well, I need to prove that I’m lovable and I’m good with the Lord. And look, I’m showing that I understand the love of God and I’m doing these things. And God says, I’ve already done everything. I’ve already done everything.
Just receive. This is the gospel message. Just receive what I’ve already done. In some sense, you don’t have to do anything. You can’t merit this. You just have to receive and believe. It is a spiritual miracle that eyes can open to this truth. And we see all the time, all around us, even in ourselves. And we see it in the world. Obviously, we see it also in the church that people are striving and straining because they don’t believe they’re loved. They think they need to earn it. They think they need to prove it.
I need to serve at the church. That is my proof that I am loved. I am earning it because I don’t think if I don’t do this that he will love me. Before the foundation of the world, he chose you. You didn’t do anything while you were an enemy of God, while you were a sinner. Who is against God, he saved you.
It says in 1 John 4:17, we need this love perfected with us, completed in us.
17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. (1 John 4:17, ESV)
I think we know it in part. We know it at times. But for us to be perfected like John the Apostle was perfected by the love of God that he called himself the beloved disciple, he was perfected. He is the writer of this because he lived it. He doesn’t have a long ministry resume. He just has a rock-solid conviction: I am loved.
Earthly parents, we fall short. We disapprove of our kids when they’re lazy. We disapprove when they’re not pulling their weight. God the Father, he’s not like earthly parents. His love is steadfast. We need to have this love perfected in us like it was perfected in Apostle John. There’s no fear in this kind of love. When this kind of love comes, you become fearless. Everybody else can look down on you.
It doesn’t matter. You are fearless. you’re so secure in the steadfast love of God. And we love by going on missions, by serving the church because he first loved us. So many people in the church are trying to love before they understand. No, he loved me first. Do you believe that he loves you?
19 We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19, ESV)
Do you believe that you are secure in his love? Is this love perfected in you so that if you are a loser in society, you don’t go to grad school, you don’t have a great job, you don’t have a great ministry, you seem like a loser. Are you so secure in the fact that God loves you? He loves you first. And that’s out of expression of our gratitude. We love to the best that we can, but first the fact that he loves us.
This needs to be perfected in us as children of God. Not only do we need this love perfected in us, we also need the fear of the Lord also in our hearts.
It says in Jeremiah 32:40, I’ll read.
40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. (Jeremiah 32:40, ESV)
Also Proverbs 3:7, it says, Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. (Proverbs 3:7, ESV)
Perfected in love has to come first. If you’re not perfected in love and then you hear what I’m about to say, you’re going to be nervous, and you’re going to think, yeah, I think God is a little angry at times. Yeah, I think he does have a stick, and he will punish me if you don’t hear what I say.
And if you don’t receive through the help of the Holy Spirit the first part, you’re going to misinterpret the second part. The people of Israel in Jeremiah’s day, they turned from the Lord. And if you read the earlier verses, you see how far they turned from the Lord. They started establishing high places for Baal, and they started offering their own children as sacrifices to Molech. And this is while still calling themselves a believer in God.
And God, he watches this. He understands that they’ve fallen away, that there is no love that has been perfected in them. And now judgment is about to come, and he says, they miss this fear of me in their hearts.
If you understand and you’re so secure in the fact that God loves you, out of a desire to please him and because you revere him, because you fear him, you’ll want to live a holy life, not because it’s a law like in your home. There, there. Maybe there wasn’t a lot of love, maybe there wasn’t a lot of affection, but there was a lot of rule keeping and being put in timeouts and putting, doing a push up on the floor, being thrown in the closet, just whatever, whatever punishments your parents did. Maybe that was where you experienced more of the fear of punishment.
But here God says they need fear in their hearts so that they don’t turn away from me. And then Proverbs 3:7, Fearing the Lord so that you turn away from evil.
If you have received the love of God, the steadfast, the perfect love of God, if you’ve been perfected by this love and you understand the danger of sin, this sin will turn me, harden me toward God. I will be moving away from God every time I sin.
And eventually I will no longer believe in God, or I will say I believe in God, but I have an idol to Molech and Baal, and I will have no sense of problem with my idolatry and my pagan worship. This happens gradually as we sin in small ways. Eventually, it becomes a full abandonment of faith. And that is why we need fear of the Lord and a turning away from evil.
This is not because you fear punishment. This is because you want to stay with the Lord. Because God loves me so much, I love him so much. I want to please him through the way that I live. I don’t want to turn from him. And so it doesn’t distort our view of God. God is not one way. On one day, loving and receiving and forgiving and forbearing and compassionate, and the next day, angry and irritable with a stick and punishment. It doesn’t work that way.
It is out of a gratitude, understanding that I’m fully loved by God, I’ve been perfected in his love, and I want to stay near to him now. I will live a holy life, I will repent as soon as I sin. And I don’t want to be drawn away from the Lord through casual sinning that builds up into full-fledged abandonment of faith and rebellion to God.
It says in 2 Corinthians 5:14.
14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15, ESV)
So if you understand, if you received the love of Christ, now you’re compelled to go on missions, you’re compelled to serve, you’re compelled to love. you’re compelled to no longer live for yourself, but to live for Jesus. And this we need to keep checking ourselves. Do we do this out of obligation, out of duty, out of habit? Or are we compelled to do this?
God told me to do this. I need to do this. I have to do this or my heart is cold. But I should do this because God is going to be upset with me. I need to do this because otherwise he’s going to abandon me. Otherwise, he’s going to. The stick is going to come out. I’m going to be in trouble. I’m going to be unfavored.
I’m no longer loved. Or am I so secure in this love of God that everyone else may look down on me? I’m so secure, my parents may look down on me. I’m so secure, the world may look down on me. I’m so secure. I have a Heavenly Father, I have an older brother, Jesus, who did everything for me. I’m so secure. They’ve done it all. And out of gratitude, it’s the least I can do. Let me live for Jesus, compelled by his love. And I will turn away from sin.
Not because I’m in trouble, not because I fear punishment. Because I love the Lord. I want to please him. I want to stay close to him. I don’t want to fall away from him. The two things that I think all children of God need are an awareness that we are loved by our Heavenly Father. Before we lifted a finger, before we did anything, while we were enemies, he loved us.
And secondly, we need a fear of him. Not because we’re in trouble, not because there’s punishment, not because he’s upset with us, but because we want to please him. We want to stay close to him. We don’t want to abandon him by casually sinning and being brought further and further away.
Okay, let’s pray.
Father, forgive us for unbelief. Your truth is so plain. And yet many times we don’t believe this. That’s why we live out of fear. That’s why we live out of worry. That’s why we’re anxious. That’s why we always feel unworthy. We’ve heard this for some of us for decades, the simple truth of the gospel.
But we need strength to comprehend. Holy Spirit, help us. Holy Spirit, help us. Give us strength to comprehend. We need help to believe this, Lord. Help our unbelief. We want to believe this. Give us strength. Enlighten the eyes of our heart to believe this, to receive this. You’ve done all the work. We want to rest in the finished work of Christ. We also want to fear your name and turn away from evil.
Not because we’re going to get in trouble, not because we’re under condemnation, wondering if we’re going to be accepted on Judgment Day. None of this is because we want to please you, want to remain close to you. We don’t want to fall away from you by casually sinning. Help us to marry these two things. The love of God that we receive and the fear of God and the reverence of God. Plant these two things deep in our hearts so that we can be compelled by the love of Christ.
Thank you Jesus that you died on a cross for us, for our sins. You were pierced in your flesh. You endured the wrath of God, and your blood was shed for the forgiveness and the remission of sins. You did all the work. We just need to receive it. Minister to us. Help us to believe this. Encounter us Lord as we close out this service. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
And as you pray and after you’ve examined your heart, and if the Lord gives you a green light, the Lord’s Supper is here.
We’d love for you to partake with us and display the unity in the body of Christ for what he did for us.
Okay, let’s pray.