I have a couple of announcements to start us off this morning. Received a text around 1040 from Ken that Brent Sponigal passed away late last night. So please continue to pray for the family. That's the only detail I have.
Don't have anything more than that. So please be in prayer for Sharon, her sister Janet, and her sister Judy, and Mother Gladys. And for their spouses for Ken and David, and grandchildren and so on. So please be in prayer for all of them.
Where did he go? Shagong, stick your hand up if you're here. Oh, I think he's gone down. He just came and said that it's his son's birthday.
So in honor of that, they have brought a cake and a few little beverages for after the service. I really like that. So I really like cake. So how can I not like that?
So they want everybody to just come and have a little celebration with them for their son's birthday. So if you could be part of that, that would be wonderful. You may ask me, daughter. My Yoruba was off a little bit there.
He said it in English. I didn't get it. Their daughter. Yeah, sorry.
Those are two words I need to learn. Son and daughter. I'll work on those. I want to and Brian and I were having a little discussion a little earlier.
You may ask me, you said, have you got your three-point message on it? I said, actually, I do. It's three points. They all begin with the letter P.
So you guys have that back there to give the PowerPoint? No, don't do that to me. They all begin with the letter P. I'll end up with that in a minute.
But I saw a little clip on Instagram yesterday from Pastor Greg Laurie from California on the COVID-19 situation. I thought maybe it's appropriate to just kind of carry that same message. He had a three-point message that was all beginning with P. So I thought that's not just a coincidence.
Maybe I should mention this. We all know that this is going around and it's a concern, obviously, for a church because we're a public gathering. I'm concerned about my brother John Wells, who flies more than anybody I know. He would not be ashamed to have that proclaimed from here because he wants our prayers.
He has to hop on an airplane tomorrow to go to Vancouver. Next door neighbor to that is Seattle and they've had 12 people die there. So I think that there's a lot of frenzy and panic that is out of perspective in some ways. But there's also concerns because this kind of sweeps around and we are a public gathering and we do things like say, hey, go around Shake Hands, greet one another with a holy kiss.
I know it's come back to me and people are saying, I don't do that. I'm concerned. I don't want to do that. I haven't said it directly to me.
But you know what, it usually comes around. I want to give you the three points that I heard yesterday beginning with the letter P. The first one is be practical. Be practical.
Wash your hands. We have hand sanitizer here. Hopefully we've got enough to get us through the next little while. We have soap in our bathrooms.
We have hot water here sometimes. We have, don't touch your face. And the other thing I want to say is if you do not feel comfortable to get up and greet one another, you know what? There's nothing wrong with turning to the person next to you and saying, good morning and staying where you are.
We're going to fist pump at this point in time. Simmy showed me a new thing where you toe pump. If you want to do that or if you want to come up to somebody and say, good morning. That's okay.
Nobody's going to look at you as if, well, they're weird. Bruce Demolader, I was down to shake his hand. He reminded me of fist pump me this morning. Nobody's going to think you're weird if you say, I'm not doing this.
I'm not comfortable to shake hands. I'm not comfortable to do all of that. I just want you to feel that we understand we all know this and we all know people have different levels of comfort with these things. The second thing he said in the message, P number two, be prayerful.
God cares about us. God is concerned about us. God tells us not to fear. God tells us not to panic.
God tells us not to worry. So we need to be praying. We need to be praying for one another. I'm praying that nobody here gets sick.
I'm praying, especially for those who have health issues and used to be, yeah, we pray for the seniors. Well, now I'm one of them. I get a discount every Wednesday at Lottens. I look at it and think, we need to be praying for one another.
We need to keep that in mind. The third thing was the third P was proclaim. You know what? There's nothing better than the whole world is in a frenzy and scared to death.
What a great time to proclaim the gospel. We have hope for a world that has no hope. Those who are filling their basements with stuff to try to get through a storm of a virus have no hope in the Lord, many of them. We have a message of great hope.
Proclaim that message to those who are lost. So those are the three things. Be practical. Be prayerful and proclaim the gospel in these times.
And if you want to see that little video clip, it's a little longer than what I just said. I think I put it on the Northbrook Facebook site. So it's there. Yeah.
All right. With saying all that, let's pray. Thank you for your great care for us. Thank you, Father, for your wonderful love to us.
Thank you. We can come and sing these praises this morning. I pray for the Sponigal and Robertson families. I pray for comfort for them at this time to have lost a dad, a husband, a father-in-law, a grandfather.
I just pray, Father, for each of them that you would comfort them. And you do not know, Lord, that through this time of loss that they would be touched in their hearts to seek Christ and to come to know Him. I pray, Father, for the protection of your family here at Northbrook with this illness that's going around the world. It seems to be sweeping right around the world.
Help us, Lord, to be those who keep things in perspective and to be depending upon you and to leave these things in your hands. I pray that you would protect your people. I think of those who are right now compromised in their health, that this is a real risk for them, that you would protect them. I pray for believers across our country and around this world, Lord, that we would be people who trust in you and that would walk with you.
I pray this morning for help as we look at your word, Lord, that the words that I use this morning would be honoring to you and that would be appropriate for our souls in Jesus' name. Amen. If you turn your Bibles, please, to Romans 5, Romans 5, I wasn't sure what I was going to actually do this morning for a couple of days, but I went back to where I was. I think it was Thanksgiving that I looked at five benefits that we have in, or four benefits that we have because of our justification.
I read those next verses and I thought those were some of my favorite verses in all the Bible and I thought I'd just speak on that. So I struggled a little bit of what I'm going to call this message. So I landed on amazing love. I'm not saying love because it speaks to the love of God.
You know, a true love is what people have, let's read the passage first, verse 6, Romans 5. For a while we were still helpless, sorry, I should read the same version you're looking at. For a while we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man, one will die, yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die.
But God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than now having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. Much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received the reconciliation. You know, true love is something that people are searching for. People want to be loved and people want to love. So I went on Google and I looked up true love.
4.5 billion hits. You can't see that because I'm not sure why this is so watched out, but it's 4.5 something billion hits. I thought, well, let's look up amazing love. It was a lot less.
It was 3.6 billion hits. But in that 4.3 billion hits, it's advertisements on how to find true love. It's a kind of risky thing when you put anything like that on Google. You don't know what you're going to come up with.
There was hit songs about true love. There was articles to ensure that you're going to find true love. And there was explanations of what true love was all about. I didn't go through all 4.5 billion.
I thought, believe me, I went through two pages. But that's what was there. True love, it's something that's been discussed. It's been pondered.
It's been considered, aren't you, debated, and centuries. People have written about true love. And I won't bother to go into that whole Princess Bride thing where the guy is lying on the thing and what's the guy's name? Is it Miracle Max or something like that?
It comes along and he says, you know, what's the real meaning? And out of Wesley's dying breath, he comes true love. And then, you know, he's all that stuff. So that kept coming back to my mind when I thought about true love.
So I switch right away and I thought, I'm going to go to amazing love. But people have become cynical. People say, well, I can't find true love. Come on.
I mean, I've tried it. I've been through many relationships, many breakups. It just doesn't work. And others say, well, you know what?
I've looked at this and love is from a chemical reaction in your brain. And we've evolved into this part where we develop this enzyme that reacts with this amino acid and therefore we get these feelings that turn into true love. And then there's others that are just hopeless romantics. I've found my soulmate.
They're compatible with me in every single way. It's unbelievable how compatible we are for now. And they believe that we're going to have this endless romance and then the sun's going to just set over our little home with the white picket fence and the little rockweiler in the yard. No, wait a minute.
Rockweilers is scary dog. Yeah. So this is going to happen. And this is the way it's going to be.
Ah, true love. It's just so great. But the fact is, we live in a broken world. We live in a fallen world.
I am a fallen person and admit it or not. I cannot, out of my fallen, broken heart and being, generate really true love. The way love is supposed to be. We can love one another.
We can, I love my wife. I love my children. I love you guys. But there's days that that is broken because I'm broken.
There's days that my sin gets in the way of my love. And I get selfish. And I get this way and that way and do stuff that hurts people that I love and people who love me. But the fact is, and we need to understand that God's love is in a different category altogether.
God's love is different than how we can generate love. God's love, in John, 1 John chapter 3 verse 1, it says, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us. That we should be called the children of God. In other words, He's saying, what kind of love is this?
Wow. What kind of love? Behold what manner of love. God's love is different than our love.
God's love is not going to be twisted and broken and contorted by sin because God has no sin. God has no ulterior motives in the way He loves. We are in this broken world and we are broken people. And that affects us.
But God's love is a perfect love. God's love is an amazing love. If we look at this passage, it's tied back to the previous passage we looked at. And that actually goes back to the last word in Romans chapter 4 in verse 25.
It's about our justification. The last word in Romans chapter 4 verse 25 is the word justification. And therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God. So the last time we looked at it, just a little summary in case you were here, to be justified means to be declared righteous.
It doesn't only mean to have your guilt cleared away. I mean, you can go to the court and a judge or a jury can sit there and say, okay, not guilty. Okay, you walk out, not guilty. You've been accused of something not guilty.
But to be justified is to be declared righteous. No judge is going to say, I declare you not guilty. And you know what? You are a righteous person.
Never happens in the court of law. But God declares us righteous because of what his son has done. Simply because we believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, when He died, He took all His guilt upon all my guilt, rather, upon Himself. And because of that, God can say sin, it's gone.
Pass in, gone. Future sin, not to pay for. You know what? You are righteous.
You are just as if I'd never sinned. That's the way it looks. So as a result of this justification, I'm going back and I'm kind of looking at the last verses where we had the last time. Here's the four benefits that we talked about last time.
We have peace with God. That's wonderful. Peace with God. I'm not at war with Him anymore.
I have access to God. I can boldly approach the throne of God. I can come to Him. So many songs I want to sing as we go through this.
We hope in the glory of the future. I have a hope. I have a hope of forever being with God because of my justification, because of what Jesus did for me on the cross. And I look at the trials and the tribulations of this life, even coronavirus.
All of these things that may come my way or that do come my way. I look at all of these difficulties. And now you see the purpose of them as God is using them in your life to conform you and to bring you to glory, to be more like His Son, to refine you. The first time the word love is used in the scriptures.
It's found in verse five. And I didn't put that here, but I will. So in verse five, it says, now hope does not appoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has given to us. So Paul has been up to this point in time.
He's been from one to five. He's been presenting the wrath of God and God's justice and God's holiness. And our shortcomings, our sin and our deserving of the wrath of God and all of these things. And then he moves to the grace of God.
And now here he introduces the love of God. So when you enter eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ, when you've trusted Him as your Savior, you enter into a lifelong, in fact, eternal love relationship with God the Father. He will always love you. He will always have that.
I like that song. I was hoping that simplicity, I haven't heard it very much, but I will love you. I will always love you. And so on.
I love you. You know, maybe you're here this morning and you've left your first love. There's a whole church talked about in Revelation that left their first love. They didn't lose their first love.
He doesn't leave them, but they left them and they wandered off into their own path. Maybe you're there this morning. You can come back. You can repent.
You can remember who He is and you can return to Him. That's all possible. Those who receive Christ as Savior enter into this love relationship with God. The second use of the word love is found in verse 8.
I'm jumping ahead a little bit. It says God demonstrated His love toward us while we're yet sinners Christ died for us. So Paul introduced God's love and then he pointed us to where the greatest example of God's love could ever be seen. And that's at the cross.
We sat around this morning earlier and we sang about the power of the cross. We sang about a man of sorrows. We read about a man of sorrows. We read the scriptures about this cup of grief that our Savior bore.
All of these things about the cross. This verse says that God demonstrated His own love for us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. That's amazing love. Amazing love.
It's the overwhelming truth of the gospel that God loves broken and imperfect people. And those guys go down town and proclaim the gospel of the streets. And they talk to individuals and they pass a little card and you know Him. The message in all of that is that for you, the imperfect people of Halifax or wherever you may be, Dartmouth, Eastern Passage, Lawrence Town, Col Harbor, wherever you may be, God loves sinners.
God loves sinners and wants sinners to come to Him. Diel Moody said, no truth in the whole Bible ought to affect us as the love of God. Love is an essential part of God's character. It's what He is.
God is love. God doesn't mean that God doesn't hate. Actually, turn to Proverbs, chapter 6 if you want to on your own time. Proverbs, chapter 6, verse 16 to 19, it says very clearly what God hates.
He hates lying. He hates evil. He hates a proud look. He hates pride itself.
He hates those who caused strife amongst their brothers. God hates those things. But His essential nature, as it says in 1 John, chapter 4 verse 8, is God is love. God has a love for sinners.
God has demonstrated that love by sending His Son. Paul, here, has discussed justification by faith. And then He gave His Son. God gave His Son.
Motivated all by love. Love for sinners. Okay, now I'll do my first point. Point number one, the proof of God's love.
You know, proof of love can be in the gift that is given. What's love willing to give? If I say, oh, you know what, it's our 35th anniversary and I'm walking out of sobeas and there's one of those gumball machines and I'm thinking, oh, I'm going to make it up to that. 25 cents, a little thing falls out.
I come home and think it's perfect. I'm going to give this to Esther. I mean, what kind of love is behind that? She looks at that and thinks, are you serious?
This is the gift you're giving me for 35 years together? Oh, yeah. I thought it was kind of cool. It's a super man ring and it's plastic and it's like, so the proof sometimes of the love is in the gift that is given.
What kind of gift did God give? First of all, his gift was sacrificial. I try to give sometimes if it's something special, I'll give the sacrificial to my wife. I'm going to deprive myself of a big screen TV so I can get her a dozen roses because they're probably costable the same, but especially Valentine's Day.
But the sacrifice that God had made, the proof of His love, He gave His Son. And not only that, His Son gave His own life for you. John chapter 3 verse 16, this is for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. He gave His Son.
In relation to chapter 2, verse 20, which I have loved this verse all my life, I have been crucified with Christ that is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. So we read that God gave His Son, John chapter 3 verse 16, in relation to chapter 2 verse 20 we read that Jesus gave Himself for you and for me. Love is willing to give, love is willing to make a sacrifice. You know, love is never passive or silent.
Love is always active and willing to act. The story is told and I remember reading this book a long time ago, I actually met the author Stephen Covey, if you're in business you've heard of this guy, seven habits of highly successful people. You've probably read it, John. What did I say?
It was very effective. So highly effective people, yeah, sorry. And in this book he talks about talking to a friend who was going through struggles in his marriage and the guy was down on this and down on that and blah, blah, blah, blah, and he said, hey man, love is a verb. Love is a verb.
You're thinking love is a feeling. Love is a verb. You put action behind love. And see God puts action behind His love.
He gave His Son. Jesus Christ put action behind His love. He gave Himself for us. She's going to have a lot of action I just tell.
One of the main reasons that marriage is deteriorating, she doesn't agree with me at all, but the couple stopped giving to each other. They stopped giving their interest. They stopped giving their time. They stopped giving their energy or their care.
And if it deteriorates it, it's something just legal and formal. All these things disappear because the giving stops. It's a book giving. Love is a book giving and action.
It's a verb. God's love as I said is a verb. He gave His best, His only Son. Jesus love is a verb.
He gave Himself. He gave His life. In fact, he says in John chapter 18 about his life, he says, no one takes it from me. I lay it down myself.
I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down. I have the power to take it again. You see, Jesus came to earth so that He could give Himself.
Matthew chapter 20 verse 28, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Very much a part of what He did. The proof of God's love is the gift, was the sacrificial gift. Secondly, His gift was an unconditional gift.
It says in this verse that we're looking at, verse 6, it says, when we were yet without strength. That means hopeless, powerless, unable to save ourselves. We had no ability to improve our condition. We were lost.
We had no strength in and of ourselves. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 and 2, it says, you were dead and trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world. Before salvation, you were like the walking dead. You were dead in your sins.
But walking around in those sins. Unable to save yourself. Unable to fix your life. Unable to have a right relationship with God.
That's the state we were in. But it says that God loved us even when we were in that state. In due time, it says, in due time at the right time in today's English. At the right time, Galatians chapter 4 verse 4 says, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons.
At the nick of time, sorry, Nick. But just at the nick of time, this happened. At just the right time. I'm going to give you a story here.
See this old man on the screen behind. His name is James Harrison. He lives in Australia. And I'm trying to find it where I have it all written notes.
I don't get this wrong. He's called a man with a golden arm. A man with a golden arm. I thought I saw that and it was a James Wanda movie when I was a kid, but it wasn't.
It was something else. But this man in Australia, he's donated his blood. He's called that because he's donated his blood so many times. In fact, over 1,100 times he donated his blood in his life until he turned 81 recently.
And he was not allowed the Australian law forbids anybody over the age of 81 from giving blood. So back in the 60s, there was this disease called RHS, R-H-E-S-U-S, RASIS, disease, RAS, disease. It affects children in the womb and once they're born. It's a dreadful disease.
But this man has an unusual composition in his plasma. And through him donating the blood and being given to these children even before they're born, it cures them. So this man, knowing this out of love, donated blood, stuck his arm out, had the pin stuck in it over 1,100 times to give his blood to save those who were without strength. Those who could not save themselves.
2.4 million babies were saved by this man giving his blood, the man with a golden arm. God sent his son, just like James came along in the nick of time to save these children because there's a spike in this disease in the 60s when this happened. God did much more than James Harrison could ever do. God gave his own son at the nick of time when the world was miserable, when the world was lost, when we needed it the most.
He sent his son to save those who were helpless, hopeless, and powerless. That's the way God's love is. You see, God's love reaches the prodigal, the one who's run away and wowls in the muck and the mire and the pig filth their own sin. God loves the prostitute who's out on the streets.
He loves the drug dealer. He loves the drug user. He doesn't love what they're doing, but he hates, in fact, what they're doing, but he loves that person. He loves their soul.
In Mark, chapter 10, verse 21, we read about a rich young ruler who came to Jesus, asking questions, and Jesus knows the heart of this man. And it says that looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him. And he said, one thing you lack, go and sell your possessions, a gift to the poor, and you will have treasure and heaven and come and follow me. It says he looked at him loving him.
This man was insensitive to spiritual things. This man, I don't know what went on in his closet. I don't know how he got to the riches and everything else. But it says, Jesus looked at him with love.
The other thing about his gift of love, it's incomparable. Read with me, please, Romans, chapter 5, verses 7 and 8. It says, for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us.
And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. These two verses, Paul compares divine love, God's love, to human love. And we see the vast difference in the way it works. We see human love is often based on the attractiveness of the object that is loved.
It's easy. We love the more attractive the person is, not necessarily physical attractiveness, but it could be that. It could be just the way they speak to me. They're always so nice to me.
They're always giving me things. And we base our love on those things. We love the attractive one. We love the one, our love is object oriented.
It's based on what that person is like, how that person reacts. They're worth, they're status, they're beauty. We're inclined to love people who love us. This is even pointed that out in Luke chapter 6 verse 32.
But you see, that's our mistake. We take that love that is distorted because of our sin and because of our imperfection and the way we are. And we try to apply that to God and we attribute those traits of human love to God and we're wrong. We think that God must love us based on how good we are.
God must love us based on how attractive we are. When I get on attractive or when I get out of sorts, then God doesn't love me anymore. That's not the way God's love works. If God loved us because we loved him, this is Charles Hodge says this, if God loved us because we loved him, he would love us only as long as we love him.
And on that condition, then our salvation would depend on the constancy of our treacherous hearts. That's a good quote. I don't want my salvation to be based on how in tune with God my heart is. My salvation is based on a God who loves me because of who he is, not because of who I am.
God's love isn't like a human being, human love. It's subject oriented, not object oriented. Love is part of his nature. It's who he is, it's what he does.
Completely independent of the beauty of the recipient. It's all based on him and who he is. His love is completely independent of the character of the subject. And so this is very unusual from our perspective.
It's very unusual to think, how can God love a cheat, a scoundrel, a sinner, a thief, a malicious gossip, how can God love them? He does because God is love, not because they are lovable. I'm going to tell another story. Actually, I want to point that first at the bottom first.
Jesus said when he came, the whole point of his coming to this earth was a rescue mission. I want to see a rescue. It was a rescue mission to save us. I have not come to call the righteous, which would be really self-righteous because no one is righteous.
I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. He was accused so many times. That guy, a friend of thieves, tax collectors and sinners. He came to save the lost.
He came to save those who were sinners. Another story, if you'll allow me, there's a guy in Plano, Texas. A real story, really true. I actually watched the little news clip of him.
His name is Hayden Carlow. Hayden Carlow was driving down the road one day. Little fast, police car pulled up behind him and pulled him over. He came up to him and said, what are the two things I asked you for when they come up to your car?
Your license and registration. License was good, valid, everything else. Registration's out of date. I said, yeah, I know.
You know? Yeah. I'm going to have to write your ticket. He says, look, I'm looking for a break here.
I lost my job and I can't afford to pay my bills. It was pay $100 for register to this car or feed my family. I made a choice to feed my family. So at that point, the police officer should write him a ticket.
I mean, he's guilty of driving around the car with it's not registered. So the police officer goes back and he writes him a ticket and he passes it over to him. Well, the man's devastated. He's sitting in his car.
He's just absolutely devastated. Oh, man. I got a $100 ticket. And as he opened the ticket up, the officer put a $100 bill in the ticket.
So he's able to go register his car. I thought that was a pretty cool story. You see, at the cross, the ticket for you was written. Did you deserve God's wrath?
Absolutely. The person who sins even once deserves God's wrath. That ticket was written at the cross. At the cross, Jesus at the same time paid that ticket.
That's worth more than a hundred bucks. He paid that ticket. The ticket was written. You're guilty.
Your sin has to be judged. And Jesus said, I'll take that. And all of God's wrath was poured out on him. He paid the ticket at the same time.
I have to move along here. Second point, next two points ago, quick. The provision of God's love, verses 9 and 10. Verses 9 and 10 is as much more than now having been justified by his blood.
We shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through his death, through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we should be saved by his life. You see, Jesus' death, as I just mentioned, saved us from wrath. Paul deals with the wrath of God starting in Romans 1 verse 18.
And then for three chapters, describes the wrath of God and the conditions of man. For those who believe in Jesus, though, for those who are here this morning, if you have common trust of Christ as your Savior, you have no fear of the wrath of God. That has nothing to do with you anymore. Ever.
You are freed from that wrath. Those who believe in him, it's not an issue. We never have to worry about it. John 5 verse 24 says, most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death unto life.
For how long ever lasting life? I never have to worry about the judgment of God on me. That's a promise. It's actually in red letters.
I can take that to the bank. For you and I who trust in Christ simply, authentically and wholeheartedly, God's wrath is never going to be an issue. But I want to tell you, it would be unfair to just walk away and not say anything more than that. It's not true of everybody.
I was at a funeral the other day and it was like, wow, everybody's going to heaven. Everybody's God's children. Everybody's good. It was obviously no mention of wrath and something like that.
No mention of judgment. Everybody's just great. We're all one big happy family. Put your arms around each other.
We're all going on the same journey. We're going to have it. But the Bible says this. John 3 verse 36, right at the bottom of the text here, and I put it in the NIV.
I think it says it very well. He might not say, I'm rejecting that gift outwardly, but to walk away and not accept that he is rejecting it. So Jesus has died to make the payment for your sins on the cross. And you might say, I don't reject Jesus.
Are you crazy? You do if you don't accept his gift. You do if you don't accept salvation that he offers to you for free. You do if you don't accept his payment for your sin.
It's a very important verse. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life for the wrath of God remains on him. This King James abides on him, lives on him. God, the Bible divides all of humanity into two camps.
Those who believe in Jesus and have escaped the wrath of God and those who do not believe and who one day will encounter the wrath of God. I pray that there's not one person here that's going to encounter the wrath of God. You have an opportunity today to turn to him to accept his gift of salvation, accept the payment for your sin. Just like that hundred dollar bill that was talked in the ticket, he could say, I'm not going to have some, I'll pay my ticket.
Well, guess what? He's still going to be guilty. He's still going to have that debt, church to him. He's still going to have that hanging over him.
The rest of the story is he went down, he actually registered his car right away. And I think he got some change back and was able to do some other things. I remember the little video I watched. So for believers, it's not an issue.
It says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 10, 1 verse 10, rather, we wait for his son from heaven who we raise from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. We are delivered from the wrath to come. God's wrath has been removed because Jesus took the brunt of it. The second thing that we read in this verse, and this is a great promise, is Jesus' death saves us from wrath, but his life saves us from our ruin.
Read verse 10 with me again. Verse 10 says, For if we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of the Son. Much more have been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. It's one of the strongest promises in the New Testament.
We are kept by God. We are kept by the life of the Lord Jesus. If a dying Savior can reconcile us to God, then a living Savior can keep us through our lives. If God can bring us to heaven, then he can keep us saints while they are on earth.
God can watch over us. God can save us from ourselves. If our future is secured by God, we have no need to be insecure about our position with him. Our safety depends on God's nature, not on our own.
I'm so thankful for that. If my eternal safety and security depended upon me, boy, I'm in big trouble. So Jesus not only perdents you, but he preserves you. In John chapter, I put those two verses at the bottom, John chapter 17 verse 15, Father, I pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one, the protection of God for the believer.
Second Timothy, 1 verse 12, I know who about who, I know who, okay, I have to go back to the King James on this. I know whom I have believed and persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him until that day. He not only heals your soul, he keeps your soul secure. Last point.
Not only that, it says, and not only that, touch it, love that. You're going to buy something on, you're watching, I never buy anything from the TV, but anytime they're offering something on TV, the gins are next. The only thing I feel ever neat comes in a pack of two. Somebody got it.
But not only that, if you order today, we'll send you the miracle chopper. And not only that, we'll throw in the second miracle chopper for you to give away. And not only that today, it's all half-price. I'd rather the Bible's not only that.
And not only that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we now have received the reconciliation. So what does this love of God, this amazing love doing us? It brings authentic joy. It brings real joy.
The world is missing joy. I'm sorry, but I have to say, I just noticed that listening to conversations, listening to people, there is a big lack of joy. Every person wants to be happy. In fact, marketing is all set up to tell you that we will make you happy.
You buy this car, you buy this truck, you will be happy, you sleep on this mattress, you will be happy. That's not good enough. Get this pillow. It'll make you happy.
Get the baconator available for a limited time. It'll make you happy. Get these fries, these girly fries. They'll make you happy.
Even by preparation age, it'll make you happy. There's all kinds of stuff that's done with marketing. John will tell you the Mohawk floor, if you put that in your house, it will make you happy. That's the way it's set up.
It doesn't produce joy. Man can't live without joy. This is one author here many years ago. He says, no man can live without joy.
That's why one who's deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures. People are looking to fill that void of joy in their life so they turn to every carnal pleasure that they can possibly find, only to come up empty. That's why we have a little track. This is, are you still thirsty?
Because you know what? You can drink every water, every alcohol, everything that you want in this world. You will come up thirsty at the end of that. The woman at the well, she's back there because she was thirsty.
Her life was empty. All those husbands. Her living boyfriend. All this stuff going on in her life.
Perched. Spiritually parched. No joy. One of the first signs that a person is right with God is joy.
I mean, I can testify in my own life. I didn't see any bright lights in here. Any voices didn't have any whistles go off or sirens or any of that stuff. All I can tell you, the night that that happened, I felt a burden was gone.
I felt this big burden is gone. I felt unchained as we sing in rescue where we should release it. That's something. Hey, I just felt, I felt like coming to be burdenless.
I'm going to be chainless, right? I just felt it was gone. I remember when my son, my older son, I think he was 25 when he came to Christ. And I was away for a weekend and I came home and I sat down and looked across the table.
I said, what's wrong with him? I have never seen him with a joyful face. Really? Look at him.
His face is full of joy. It's joy that comes with knowing that you are right with God. The joy that God offers is not one that cardiologists can promise. It's not one that flooring dealerships can promise.
It's not one that the latest little Himalayan salt that I try to sell can promise. Or the newest cookie. It's none of that stuff. It's found only, only in God.
God's not interested in just putting a temporary smile on your face. He wants you to know that you are secure in him and you will have joy for life. I have this definition of joy. I think I put it in there.
Joy is an attitude of peace that cannot be taken away. Somebody told me that within the first couple of months of knowing Christ and I thought, I am going to cling to that. I wrote that down in every Bible of the first of Philippians. Joy is an attitude of peace that cannot be taken away.
That's why a person can know the Savior dying in a hospital bed with a smile on their face because they know they have an attitude of peace. Are they comfortable? No. Are they happy?
Probably not with what's going on. Are they in pain? God gives. He wants to put real joy, real hope, real love into your heart.
Real love. One last story. There was a young girl who tried dating quite a bit and wasn't working for her. She did various things through her school and joined different clubs and just wasn't working.
She went to places where she could meet people. She said, I tried this online thing. My apologies to anybody who met their spouse or significant other online, but I got to tell this story. She goes to the online thing and she fills out this form.
It asks her all kinds of questions. One of the things she put in, she needed somebody, she wasn't very tall. I want somebody who's not very tall. I really like to dress it up.
I want somebody who's not a slob, just formal in their attire. I don't like somebody who's going to be a slobby old guy. That rules up most of us. I love walks on the beach.
I want somebody who's going to be wanting to be with me by the ocean. Puts it all in. They come back with a penguin. They thought they knew what she needed.
They thought they knew that this is what she needed for love. Here's the thing. God knows exactly what you needed. God sent for you a Savior.
He sent someone who demonstrated his love for you in his sacrifice. He loves you at your worst and he can take your worst and turn you into your best. Into his best, rather. True love, amazing love, is when you discover that God and heaven, your Creator, did all of this.
He saw and don't ask me why, but he saw value in you. He saw value in me. Enough to send his son to save us that we may be his and experience his amazing love. Father, thank you this morning.
This afternoon, as we ponder the amazing love of God, all the love that drew salvation's plan, all the grace that brought it down to man. Oh, the mighty gulf, the God that's banned at Calvary when he sent his son. Oh, the love of Christ that he would give himself for us. Father, help us to just ponder on this love.
If there's anybody here this morning who has never come to Jesus Christ, who has never trusted in him, I pray that today that they would think of these things, surrender their heart to the one who died for them and paid the price for their sins. We ask it in his own name. Amen. You're okay to sing a song?