In some ways, the answer is quite simple, isn’t it?  Ultimately, as Christians, we are to love God.  It is not only what Jesus said to us, but it is what we are especially told in Deuteronomy and Joshua.  I’d encourage you to spend some time reading through the following passages: Deuteronomy 6:5, 10:12, 11:1, 11:13, 13:3, 30:6; Joshua 22:5, 23:11.  We love him, John tells us, because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).  I wonder if you feel your allegiance, action, and affection (your love in the words of John Frame) toward God receding from time to time.  I know that has certainly been the case from time to time in my spiritual walk, and my sense is that it is the universal experience of Christians to pass through times of greater and lesser intensity of love for God.  I have also found that perhaps the single greatest encouragement or inducement to greater love for God has been to deeply reflect on his own love.

So when you’re feeling discouraged about your love for God, lean into his love.  Get to know what his love is like, and pray that your love would be more like his.  In addition to praying and reflecting on the Scriptures, consider the following hymn, entitled “The Love of God” by Frederick M. Lehman,

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.                         Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.                Refrain

When we consider the depth and breadth of God’s love, we should surely never run out of love for him.

Speaker: Mike Law

Series: John

Location: Grace Baptist Church of Arlington

For now, let’s ponder, “What is love?”  In the past, I have defined love by pointing out that it is not just a feeling, but that it is also a visible display of adoration and care that is personal and sacrificial.  That’s a decent definition, I think, but while I was recently reading on the topic of love, I came across a much more sharp and succinct definition of love.  In his book The Doctrine of the Christian Life, John Frame defines love this way, “Love is allegiance, action, and affection” (Frame, John, The Doctrine of the Christian Life, [Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008], p.193).  I appreciate Dr. Frame’s definition and I want to reflect on it.

I appreciate how in this definition, I’m called to love God to the exclusion of everything and everyone else (allegiance).  After all, I’m “to have no other gods” before him (Exodus 20:3).  That’s not to say that I won’t love my wife, my children, and the ministry that the Lord has entrusted to me, but it is to say that nothing in this life is to demand my ultimate allegiance like God does.  Nothing and no one else is to have my worship and praise.  “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God” (Isaiah 45:5).  If I find that something or someone is competing with the Lord for my allegiance, then that something or someone is an idol, and there needs to be a radical readjustment.  That person or thing may be a good gift from the Lord, but they are not the Lord.

Also, I appreciate how this definition calls me to make my love visible through faith-filled action.  Love requires sacrificial action done for the glory of God.  Sadly, this is where I sometimes fall short.  While I will endeavor to reveal my love for God in my words and deeds through his strength and grace, and while I will sometimes continue to fall short, I’m eternally grateful that Jesus did not fall short of displaying his love through his actions.  In his death, we truly see how great his love was for his sheep.  In his death, we see how, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).  Praise God for the love of Christ seen in his actions, and may we by the strength and grace of God follow after our Savior in this way.

Finally, I appreciate how this definition addresses my heart.  My affections are to be taken up with God.  He delights in his children (Zephaniah 3:17), and his children should certainly delight in him (Psalm 37:4).  I’m often slow to recognize the importance of affection, but in some ways this may be the most important aspect of love.  I don’t want to overemphasize this point to devalue allegiance and action, but it seems to me that affection is the ground or foundation of allegiance and action.  To put it slightly differently, allegiance and action spring from affection.  If we are not captivated by God, then we will be tempted to divide our loyalty and we’ll certainly be slow to act.

In view of love, I take up the words of the great Puritan prayer, “The Love of Jesus,” and make them my own (Bennett, Arthur, The Valley of Vision [Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2003], p.44):

“O Father of Jesus,
Help me to approach thee with deepest reverence,
not with presumption,
not with servile fear, but with holy boldness.
Thou art beyond the grasp of my understanding,
but not beyond that of my love.
Thou knowest that I love thee supremely,
for thou art supremely adorable, good, perfect.

My heart melts at the love of Jesus,
my brother, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh,
married to me, dead for me, risen for me;
He is mine and I am his,
given to me as well as for me;
I am never so much mine as when I am his,
or so much lost to myself until lost in him;
then I find my true manhood.

But my love is frost and cold, ice and snow;
Let his love warm me,
lighten my burden,
be my heaven;
May it be more revealed to me in all its influences
that my love to him may be more fervent and glowing;
Let the mighty tide of his everlasting love
cover the rocks of my sin and care;
Then let my spirit float above those things
which had else wrecked my life.

Make me fruitful by living to that love,
my character becoming more beautiful every day.
If traces of Christ’s love-artistry be upon me,
may he work on with his divine brush
until the complete image be obtained
and I be made a perfect copy of him,
my Master.

O Lord Jesus, come to me,
O Divine Spirit, rest upon me,
O Holy Father, look on me in mercy
for the sake of the well-beloved.”

Amen.

Speaker: Mike Law

Series: John

Location: Grace Baptist Church of Arlington

Speaker: Jason Berrus

Series: Titus

Location: Grace Baptist Church of Arlington

As Christians we’re called to walk with our brothers and sisters who are sick with sin and burdened by it, as James 5:16 and Galatians 6:1 makes clear.  Even so, we are not called to look down upon them as though we are completely and utterly free from sin.  We will only be able to walk with and serve our brothers and sisters in Christ if we look deep within our own hearts and look to Christ.  We must recognize our own wretchedness if we are to help other wretches too.

We must say with Paul in Romans 7:24, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” But we must not stop there. We must also say what he says in the next verse in Romans 7:25, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  We must give thanks to God that we have been bought by the blood of the blessed Redeemer.  We must revel and rejoice in Christ if we are to help our brothers and sisters to do the same.

So dear Christian, walk with your brothers and sisters.  Walk with sinners.  As you do, remember that you are your own most difficult case, and that the Savior has come to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found.  So, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Speaker: Mike Law

Series: John

Location: Grace Baptist Church of Arlington

It is striking to me that people really are trying to make the serpent’s words, “You shall not surely die,” come true.  Just think of all of the monetary resources being poured into cryogenic freezing.  The problem, however, is not so much in the temptations that the world offers, but in our hearts, which are all too quickly inclined to hear the sales pitch to leave realism for idealism.  Yes, what it offers is but a mirage, an image of a pool of water in the desert which upon further investigation gives way to a dry and parched land, but what else can the serpent offer?  He can only make the fruit pleasing to the eye, but he cannot make it taste good.  Sin indeed makes us miserable.

“But,” you may protest, “shouldn’t we as Christians be idealistic and hopeful?”  Of course we should.  We should be as idealistic as God is.  We should be as hopeful as the Bible calls us to be.  We should be content, and we should never be satisfied.  Biblical realism isn’t at odds with this type of idealism at all.  Rather, it is at odds with the idealism that this world offers – an idealism that says everything will be perfect if you just do, get, and enjoy these things.  Just get this job, this much money, this house, this spouse, this car, this type of family, this amount of time with family, this kind of hobby, and maintain this type of body.  The idealism that this world offers is a kind of idealism that is independent of God, and that, well, that just isn’t real.

If we’re searching, aiming, or laboring for a life where we are not in need, then we’re not looking for God’s ideal; we’re looking for our own.  “God will crush your idols,” a friend once told me, and those were some of the kindest words ever spoken to me.  God will not be second.  He will be first, and he will make sure to righteously and lovingly crush everything that stands between your heart and his.  He will win your heart by any means necessary, and we should all praise him for that.  This is what he sets out to do when he sets his love upon his people, and he makes this ideal a reality.

Speaker: Sam Webb

Series: Ephesians

Location: Grace Baptist Church of Arlington

Speaker: Mike Law

Series: John

Location: Grace Baptist Church of Arlington