Subject: Sermon will be taught on thi answer |
Bible Note: Your audience may not have been thrilled if you told them this, but loving God means obeying him. As to doing it with all the heart and soul and mind, you would have needed the Holy Spirit to bring them to that. If it is true that we resent having to obey the Lord, then we are a long way from doing so with everything we have. But the love of Christ constrains us, and we love him because he first loved us. We find that his commandments are not grievous; they are actually good for us. And so, in loving God, we love ourselves, including our neighbors. And we must love our neighbor in order to love God, ‘cause we do not see God, but we see our neighbor. All of this we learn from his word, for he who asked us to love him told us how it is done. They that love me … keep my commandments (Exodus 20:6, Deuteronomy 5:10; 7:9). Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, always (Deuteronomy 11:1). You shall hearken diligently unto his commandments which he commands you, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 11:13,22). You shall keep all the commandments to do them, which he commands you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk ever in his ways (Deuteronomy 19:9). He commands you to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments (Deuteronomy 30:16). Take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul (Joshua 22:5). Those who love him observe his commandments (Nehemiah 1:5). David (as we suppose he wrote this psalm) delighted himself in the Lord, and in his commandments, which he loved (Psalm 119:47, 48). He loved God’s commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold. (v.127). And Daniel (9:4) loved the great and dreadful God who responds in mercy toward those who show love to him by keeping his commandments. Jesus loved him and did always those things that pleased him (John 8:29). In order that the world might know that he loved the Father; and as the Father had given him commandment, including the one that he die for us (John 10:18) even so he did (John 14:31). Jesus said, (John 14:15) “If you love me, keep my commandments”. “He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me ” (John 14:21). He said, “If If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love (John 15:10). John says, “When we love God, (we) keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments (1 John 5:2,3) and again, “This is love, that we walk after his commandments” (2 John 1:6). Again, it seems hard to make all this attractive and appealing, but that is what God says, and for those who understand it, it is good. If we love him, we will do what makes him happy. And he is happy when we obey him. He takes great delight in the fact that we obey the voice of the LORD (1 Samuel 15:22). When we obey God with all our heart, then we have peace like a river, and righteousness as the waves of the sea (Isaiah 48:18). But it is hard to believe that, and so we hesitate. It is like a waiting to jump in. It is only after we have done it, and waited a while, that we find God’s word is true in our experience. It might help to remind ourselves how much he loved us. Greater love has no man than this: He gave himself for us. And again, we love him because he first loved us. |