Why are we here?
That is, not why are we in the
theatre, but why are we here on this
earth?
Why are you alive?
Why am I alive?
You know that we keep on giving secondary
answers, like to make money, or to have
children, or to be successful.
But many of us are really still bewildered
about why we're alive at all.
And you know the answer that God has
shown us.
That we're here so that we can live
forever in fellowship with him.
And that's really why we're here at all.
And that that involves two problems.
How can a holy, just creator accept unholy
people like us?
And secondly, how can we ever become the
kind of people that he would want to
spend eternity with?
And those are really the two problems that
we've seen that Jesus answers.
And you know that most of us have
problems when it comes to the second one.
We know that God accepts us because Jesus
has died and paid the price of our
unholiness.
And therefore God is free to accept us.
But many of us who call ourselves Christians
have problems at the second step, becoming like
God, so that we will be enjoyable for
him to be with for eternity.
And it's at that point where many of
us run into real problems in our Christian
life.
We call it sanctification.
This business of becoming like God.
You find that if you want to look
at it in Romans 8 and 29.
That's where the truth is expressed.
Romans 8 and 29.
It's page 983.
No one's in that black RSV.
983.
And Romans 8 and 29.
And this is really the truth of sanctification.
God making us like himself.
Romans 8 and 29.
For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined
to be conformed to the image of his
son.
And that's it, you see.
God wants to conform us to the image
of his son.
Now, that's where many of us begin to
run into difficulties at that experience.
Because you can't make free agents like us,
like Jesus, unless you begin to show them
in what ways they're not like Jesus.
Because you want them to enter into it
willingly.
So, you can't make them like Jesus by
putting them to sleep and just making them
waken up the next morning like Jesus.
That would be taking away their free will.
The only way to get free agents to
be like Jesus is to begin to point
out where they're not like him.
Now, that's where many of us who are
Christians fall into difficulties.
Because the Holy Spirit, soon after we're converted,
begins to point out the inward sin inside
us.
The selfishness that nobody sees.
The jealousy that nobody sees.
The anger that we never express.
The pride that is deep down in all
our motives and our ambitions.
And the Holy Spirit begins to show us
these things and many of us at that
point throw up our hands in horror and
say, oh, God couldn't possibly accept a person
like me.
So, I must not even be a child
of God.
Now, do you see, Dylwins, that you're a
child of God, accepted by God, not because
you're good and not because you're pure and
not because you're utterly unselfish, but because Jesus
died for all your selfishness.
That's why you're a child of God.
But it happens with many of us that
when the Holy Spirit begins to work on
us as children of God to take us
the second step, that is to begin to
make us like God, we throw up our
hands in horror and say, oh, if all
that mess is down there, I mustn't be
a child of God.
God couldn't possibly accept somebody like me.
Now, loved ones, that's why God prompted Paul
to write clearly in black and white why
God was willing to accept us at all.
And you see it in Romans 5 and
9.
And we've talked about the verse often, but
it's good to remember it, especially if we
are beginning to go deeper with God and
beginning to move into more of the dealings
of the Holy Spirit and into the experience
that we call sanctification.
It's page 980.
Romans 5 and 9 is the basic reason
why God accepts us.
Since, therefore, we are now justified by his
blood.
Now, God is justified in accepting us, not
because we're good, not because we're worthy, not
because we're trying harder than we ever did
before, but because Jesus has paid the debt
of the death penalty to his justice on
our behalf, and God has no longer anything
against us.
And we similarly are justified in expecting God
to accept us because we can say, this
man has died for us.
You don't need any longer to demand our
death.
He has died for us.
That's the reason God accepts us.
But you know that often we come under
kind of false condemnation when the Holy Spirit
begins to deal with us.
He takes you, you know, in your home
situation, and your mom or your brother or
your roommate say something to you.
And before you know it, you've whipped out
against them in bad temper.
Or you've said to them, what right have
you to treat me like that?
And all the irritability and the impatience and
the sarcasm comes out.
And you look inside and you say, oh,
if I'm like that, I couldn't be God's
child.
Do you see, brothers and sisters, you're God's
child, not because you have none of that
down there, but because Jesus has died for
all that.
That Jesus has made things right between you
and the Father.
But many of us still rebel against that.
Many of us fall under the condemnation that
Satan brings.
And it is Satan.
I think it's good to see that really
for some of us.
If you look at Revelation 12 and 10,
you can see Satan's main function in regard
especially to those of us who believe God
has accepted us.
Revelation 12 and verse 10, And I heard
a loud voice in heaven saying, Now the
salvation and the power and the kingdom of
our God and the authority of his Christ
have come.
For the accuser of our brethren has been
thrown down, who accuses them day and night
before our God.
And often when we begin to enter into
some of the new conviction of inward sin
that the Holy Spirit brings, when he begins
to point out, you know, that it's not
just drinking, it's not just swearing, it's not
just these outward sins that we have called
sins that matter, but it's the inward pride.
It's the sarcasm in our voices when we
speak to people.
It's the critical attitude inside our hearts that
nobody sees.
It's that that God wants to get rid
of.
When we begin to receive the new conviction
of the Holy Spirit that precedes an experience
of sanctification, often Satan gets into the act
as well and starts accusing us and says,
Yeah, yeah, I mean, Jesus has died.
Yes, but he's died for people who are
better than you.
He hasn't died for you.
And many of us get into that position.
We say, Oh, yeah, we know Jesus has
died for everybody, but oh, he couldn't have
died for me.
God couldn't love a person as miserable and
wretched as I am.
And you know that's why we read that
verse last Sunday, that Jesus, at the very
time when we were incapable of doing anything
to make ourselves right with God, Jesus died
for the ungodly.
And it's so good to see that Jesus
died for ungodly people.
Not for godly people.
And yet many of us have troubles.
We still say, Oh, yeah, Pastor, yeah, I
know he died for the ungodly, but no,
he couldn't love me.
He couldn't love me.
If you saw into my heart, nobody could
love me.
Now, why do we feel that?
Why do many of us here this morning,
when we begin to move into sanctification, suddenly
begin to doubt if God can possibly love
us?
Well, the answer is in the verse that
we'll study today, if you'd like to look
at it.
It's Romans 5 and verse 7.
It's Romans 5 and 7.
It's page 980.
And this is the reason why many of
us, though we accepted at one time that
God loved us and that Jesus had died
for us, when we begin to move in
to some new conviction of inward sin, we
begin to doubt whether God loves us at
all.
Romans 5 and 7.
Why?
One will hardly die for a righteous man,
though perhaps for a good man, one will
dare even to die.
It's because you and I judge God's love
according to the world's love.
You and I judge God as loving us
the way the world loves us.
And the world always loves us depending on
the kind of people we are.
It depends on our state.
The world looks at us, and if we're
worthy of love, the world loves us.
So the world says, you see, well, for
a righteous man, one who just abides by
the letter of the law and is morally
upright like a Pharisee, one will hardly dare
to die for him at all.
But for a good man, a man who
not only abides by the law but is
maybe warm and loving and generous as well,
one might even dare to die for him.
In other words, the world decides whom it
loves on the basis of the state of
that person's heart and their character.
And so we have a great tendency to
look into our hearts and to say, God
couldn't possibly love me because the world loves
me according to the kind of person I
am.
So if God loves me on the same
basis, he couldn't possibly love me.
And that's the error that we fall into.
See, the world does love us on that
basis.
People hire you on that basis, don't they?
They examine you completely, examine all your abilities,
and then they decide whether to accept you
or not.
They fire you on the same basis.
If you haven't performed well, they fire you.
We get friends on the same basis.
So often people love us because we're worth
loving.
There's something attractive in us or there's something
worthwhile in us.
We in fact tend to love other people
on the same basis, don't we?
We tend to love people who are compatible
with us or who are attractive to us
in some way.
And we ourselves try to win acceptance by
our peers on the same basis.
At school, we try to be swingers, try
not to be squares.
At college, we try to wear beers because
beer's early.
We try to gain acceptance with other people
by being the kind of people that they
would want to love.
Now, brothers and sisters, that's the way the
whole world works.
Even the commercials on TV assure you that
if you could possibly ever get the sweetest
breath in town, then you're set for a
married partner for the rest of your life.
Or if you mothers could possibly have hands
like your teenage daughter, then family troubles just
cease.
Everybody loves someone with sweet breath and with
smooth hands.
And really, if you could be a new
you coming every day, then a lifeguard will
undoubtedly love you.
And do you see that we're brainwashed with
the idea that you're loved when you're worth
loving.
You're loved when you have a certain state
of heart or a certain character, then people
like you.
You know it works even in marriage, the
highest form of worldly love and human love
that we see.
So often married people even come together because
they see something in each other that they
want.
And again, they love each other because they
see something in each other that attracts them.
That's why so many marriages fall apart, because
they cease to see in each other what
they want.
And so they love each other according to
the state of each other's character and heart.
Now, brothers and sisters, God's love is absolutely
different to that.
Now, dear ones, you just have to face
it, that God's love is not like human
love at all.
You know, even in Christian circles it comes
about.
We say, you know, we love people's souls,
but so often the brothers love the sharp
-looking girl's souls, and the sisters love the
sharp- looking girl's souls.
And so often, even in Christian circles, our
love is governed by what the other people
are like.
Now, God's love is not like that at
all.
Dear ones, God's love depends not on the
character of the person to be loved, but
depends on the character of the person loving.
God's love depends on His own nature.
God loves because He is loving, because His
heart is filled with love.
He doesn't look at a person and say,
ah, you're nasty and jealous and selfish and
proud.
I'm not going to love you.
God loves independent of your nature, independent of
how bad or miserable or rotten you are.
God loves.
It's utterly different from the world's love.
So, do you see, it's never right to
look at the way other people love us
and then say, ah, God loves us like
that, multiplied to the nth degree.
He doesn't.
Because human love is based on your character,
on the kind of person you are, on
whether you're useful or attractive to the other
person.
God loves you utterly, completely independently of whether
you're attractive or not.
God loves you because He's a loving Father,
and His heart is filled with love.
You see that you will never build up
your faith by looking at people and their
attitude to you.
You'll never build up your faith in God's
love that way.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the
Word of God.
And the Bible is full of passages and
stories that show you that God loves independent
of the person's character that He's loving.
Now, if you look at it, you know,
even in the Old Testament, you see it.
If you look at Hosea there and see
God's attitude to Israel in Hosea, and it's
Hosea and chapter 11.
And you'll find that God loves there the
nation of Israel independent, really, of the character
of the nation of Israel.
And it's page 782, Hosea chapter 11.
And you can see here God's heart.
When Israel was a child, I loved him.
And out of Egypt I called my son.
The more I called them, the more they
went from me.
They kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning
incense to idols.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to
walk.
I took them up in my arms, but
they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of compassion, with
the bands of love.
And I became to them as one who
eases the yoke on their jaws.
And I bent down to them and fed
them.
They shall return to the land of Egypt,
and Israel shall be their king, because they
have refused to return to me.
The sword shall rage against their cities, consume
the bars of their gates, and devour them
in their fortresses.
My people are bent on turning away from
me.
So they are appointed to the yoke, and
none shall remove it.
But here is God's heart coming out.
How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I hand you over to Israel?
How can I make you like Atma?
How can I treat you like Zeboim?
My heart recoils within me.
My compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger.
I will not again destroy Ephraim, for I
am God and not man, the Holy One
in your midst, and I will not come
to destroy."
Now, brothers and sisters, God is God and
not man.
And He loves people because He loves them,
not because they're worthy to be loved.
And you see it right through Jesus' life,
you know.
You remember the times when He does it.
If you look at Matthew 8 there, and
just one indication with a letter, Matthew chapter
8, and verses 1 through 3, and it's
page 841.
When He came down from the mountain, great
crowds followed Him.
And behold, a leper came to Him and
knelt before Him, saying, Lord, if you will,
you can make me clean.
And He stretched out His hand and touched
Him, saying, I will be clean.
Now, the leper's skin was not smooth.
The leper's skin was peeling and was putrid.
And the leper's breath was not sweet-smelling.
It smelled like his body and like his
disease.
And Jesus saw nothing in the leper that
was useful to Him, but He loved the
leper.
And loved ones, Jesus looks at us in
the same way.
And however leprous we are on the inside,
Jesus loves us independent of the kind of
people we are.
And you find it, you know, with old
Zacchaeus, you remember.
And Zacchaeus was a traitor to his country.
He was just a quizzling, just a fellow
that was being used by the occupation forces
to milk finances from his own people.
And yet you remember when Jesus came together
with him, he asked him, can I come
to your house for tea?
And you remember the Pharisees said, why do
you have anything to do with a sinner
like that?
And Zacchaeus was not a popular man.
And he was not a man that everybody
wanted to be with.
But Jesus loved him.
Now, brothers and sisters, God continues to love
us, even as He is showing us the
ways in which we are not like Jesus.
God not only loves us, but Jesus has
died for all of us.
God has atoned for all of the stuff
that He's even showing you inside in your
heart.
He's atoned for it all.
In other words, the death of Jesus is
for all of us, whatever state our hearts
are in.
Whether we've been Christians for years or whether
we're not Christians, Jesus has still died for
us.
Now, that's different from saying we are all
therefore accepted by God.
God loves us all, but He doesn't accept
us all.
He can only accept those of us who
repent and who trust Him.
So, it is important, you know, to see
that.
Some people, you remember, have perverted God loves
everybody into God accepts everybody.
God can only accept those who come to
Him.
It's like having a lifeboat in a raging
sea, and the ship is just going down.
The lifeboat is available, but survivors have to
get into the lifeboat in order to be
saved.
Otherwise, they'll be lost.
Now, it's the same with God.
God loves us all.
There's no question.
Loved ones, do you see there's no question
as to whether God loves you or not?
There's just no question of it.
There's only a question in your mind when
you look at human beings and you see
them despising people who aren't attractive and who
aren't winsome and who aren't personality people.
It's only difficult for you then to believe
that God loves you, but if you look
at God as He appears in Jesus and
as He appears through the Bible, you'll have
no doubt that God loves you.
Of course, He loves you, but He can
only accept you when you begin to come
towards Him and move towards Him in repentance
and in trust.
But God does love you.
Now, do you see there's no question of
God's love.
If you want God's love, it is there.
The only people who cannot believe in God's
love this morning in the theater are people
who will not believe.
I know that's hard, but that's the way
Jesus put it.
Jesus said, there are some people who will
not believe.
They have all the ground, all the basis
for believing, but they won't believe.
Now, you see that in, I think it's
Luke 22 and 67, if you remember.
Jesus put it strongly and there are two
Greek words for the negative, u and me,
and He uses both of them, you know,
to emphasize there are some people who just
will not believe.
It doesn't matter what you say to them.
And it's page 917, 917, Luke 22 and
verse 67.
And you remember the priests and scribes are
speaking to Jesus.
It's 918, 918, Luke 22 and 67.
If you are the Christ, tell us.
But He said to them, If I tell
you, you will not believe.
Now, brothers and sisters, the only way not
to believe that God loves you is to
actually will not to believe.
And if you keep looking at human beings
and their attitude to you, then you are
willing not to believe.
Because you keep on saying what is not
true.
You keep on saying, yeah, that's the way
God loves me.
He loves me like human beings love me.
They love me when I'm attractive or when
I'm good.
That's the way God loves me.
If you will to believe that way, then
you cannot enter into truth at all.
And you'll live a lie for the rest
of your life.
Now, here are some of the people who
do that.
And the psychologists have helped us in this.
Some people say, well, I had a cruel
father.
I had a father who wasn't loving at
all.
He was hard and impersonal.
He laid down the law to the family
all the time.
Or I had no father.
Or I had a father that left my
mother and abandoned me.
And they say, now, you tell me, how
can I possibly believe in a loving heavenly
father if I have a father like that?
Now, loved ones, do you see that it
wouldn't matter if you had the greatest father
in the whole world?
His human love is nothing like God's love?
Do you see that that's only a cop
-out that we've been enabled to enter into
through psychology?
Do you see that it doesn't matter if
you had an angelic father?
His love is nothing like God's love.
Because even his love is tainted a little
with your own state and your own character.
God loves differently from any father.
Or some of us say, and you know
it came in through the liberal philosophy and
through humanism.
Some of us say, now, if my brothers
won't love me, we Irish minority groups say
this.
No, but the minority groups are strong on
it, aren't they?
If my brothers and sisters won't love me,
my brothers and sisters whom I see won't
love me, how can I possibly believe that
God whom I cannot see loves me?
Now, dear ones, do you see that it
wouldn't matter if you were surrounded with the
best and most loving friends in the whole
wide world?
Their love is still different from God's love.
It wouldn't give you any better an idea
of God's love.
The only way you see the way God
loves is to look at the Father and
to look at Jesus in the New Testament
and to see that he loved a leper
who was dirty and smelly, that he loved
Zacchaeus who was a traitor and a liar
and unpopular, and that this is the same
Jesus who lives this morning and loves you,
even as through his Holy Spirit he begins
to expose the jealousy and envy and the
pride and the sarcasm inside you so as
to make you like himself.
Yet Jesus is still loving you and he's
accepting you because he died for you, not
because you're perfect and not because you're pure.
A lot of us say, you know, well,
I want to believe that, but I can't
believe it.
Loved ones, everybody has a will free enough
that with the aid of God's grace they
can believe what God has shown them of
himself down through the centuries.
Some of us say, oh yes, I know
many can, but I can't.
I've tried and I can't feel God's love.
Brothers and sisters, do you see that your
feelings are programmed by other people's attitude to
you?
If you try to feel God's love, then
you're dealing with feelings that are programmed by
human love and by human's attitude towards you.
It's not a matter of feeling God's love,
it's a matter of believing God's love.
You believe that if God loved a leper,
if he loved Zacchaeus, then he loves me.
Whether I feel he loves me or not,
I believe he loves me.
And loved ones, it's vital to walk in
that confidence, you see, as we begin to
walk into this experience of sanctification.
Otherwise, it'll just be a desperate, defeating, sorrowful,
grief-stricken experience.
But if you look at it this way,
and you see that God loves you independent
of what you're like, even when you're the
saintliest person in the whole world, God loves
you no more than he loves you today.
Then you can begin to move into the
new conviction of sin that the Holy Spirit
brings, and begin to move towards crucifixion with
Christ.
And move into it joyfully, you see, and
confidently.
And that's the Father's will for us, you
know.
So, will you stop looking in?
Will you stop judging God by the way
other people think of you?
Do you know that you're the most lovable
person in the world to your Father?
Good ones, do you really know that?
Now, would you stop cringing yourself up in
a little ball and saying, nobody loves me?
That's not fair to your Father, you know.
He gave you good hair and good face,
and a body that he thinks is good.
And he thinks he has given you a
good personality.
Now, you have no right, loved ones, to
look up to him and complain, and say
you haven't, you haven't given me the right
things, and you don't love me.
You've never given your life for anyone.
And the Father has given his own son's
life for you.
So, really, you know, it's time for us
to stop pitying ourselves.
God doesn't love you because you're pitiable, or
because you need sympathy.
God loves you because he loves you.
He thinks the world of you.
And he doesn't want you to let Satan
get in and persuade you of a lie,
or let human beings persuade you of a
lie.
They'll never love you as God does.
Dear Father, we thank you that when we
look at you in Jesus, we don't have
any doubt that you love us.
Father, we can't have any doubt.
We see it plainly stated that you love
the world so much that you gave your
only begotten Son for us.
Father, we know that.
When we look into Jesus' eyes, we see
compassion for lepers, and for traitors, and for
liars.
When we look into your eyes, we see
compassion for sinners.
We see compassion for confidence tricksters.
We see compassion for people who have opposed
you and fought against you.
And, Father, we know that that is your
attitude to us this morning.
So, Lord, we thank you that you are
beginning to show us the ways in which
we're not like Jesus.
And we thank you that you accept us
not because we're like Jesus, but because you
love us with all your heart, and because
Jesus has died so that you could accept
us.
And, Father, we believe that.
We chose to believe that this morning, and
accept your love and thank you for it,
and trust you for more conviction of inward
sin by the Holy Spirit, so that we
may come into the fullness and the baptism
of the Holy Spirit, and into real sanctification.