Transcript

Let’s go back to Romans chapter 5 this morning. I know we looked at a lot of this just a few weeks ago, but I want to amplify on one particular verse. Meditating on it this week, it just seemed to come alive with deeper meaning in my heart, and I want to dump that on you. And may we all be blessed by the preaching of the Word of God. Romans 5:8, in the flow of the context, the apostle is writing to the local church at Rome and he’s talking about how we are helpless and we are ungodly and we are sinners and we’re God’s enemies. And in the midst of that, and this relates to all of those characterizations, not just characterizations, truths of who we are, what we are before a holy God, he says this, Romans 5:8, “but God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners,” while we were yet criminal lawbreakers destined to destruction, “While we were there, last four words, Christ died for us.”

I’ve simply entitled this, The God Who Does What He Pleases. The God Who Does What He Pleases. When you come to something like this, and you know the context, and you know the dark dismal doom and hopelessness of the way we stand before this holy God, you have to think, if God stepped in when we were like that and did something magnanimous for us, like sending his son to die for us, then who is this God?

And that’s the first main point, Roman number one, who is this God? You know, I’ve preached a lot. I’ve said a lot, particularly to preachers through the years. You must have a robust preaching on the doctrine of man’s sin and depravity if you’re gonna reach your people to joy in and treasure in and love Christ. You’ve gotta know the black backdrop of who we are to glory in the wonders of his love and mercy and grace and forgiveness. But equally so, we need to revive in our pulpits today a robust addressing of the attributes of God, just who is he? Oh, it’s so frustrating. And it’s been this way in every generation. I could say it’s so frustrating today, but it’s been this way throughout time. And that is the notion that God must be what I feel like he should be. Oh, God is what I think He is like. I’ve got news for you. That’s ridiculous. Your puny, fallen, sin-corrupted reasoning can somehow come up with the truth of who God is? No, we have to come to the Word of God. Remember, this is Realignment Sunday. We want to realign our heart and our thinking with the truth and kick out our notions that may contradict or fall short of the truth.

So who is this God that would come in here while we are helpless and enemies and sinners and ungodly? Who is this God? Well, we don’t have time to deal with that because that would take many, many, many months of preaching. But we’ll touch on a few things today, and that is that he is the God who is triune. He’s God the Father, he’s God the Son, and he’s God the Holy Spirit. One God manifested in three persons and give up rather on all the illustrations of what sort of pictures that for us because they all fall short. You cannot conceive of the reality that he is one true God, but three persons at the same time, and all three persons are equally God with the others. He’s triune. You know, when you consider the God of Scriptures, Matter of fact, Moses appeared before the Lord, and the Lord told Moses he’s going to deliver the people out of Egyptian bondage. And Moses said, well, we have all of these gods of the Egyptians and gods of the pagans. Which god are you? Who am I gonna tell him you are? And God just said, well, I am that I am. I’m so big you can’t figure me yet, you can’t locate me, you can’t look at me through a telescope or microscope, you can’t study me in a scientific formula. The great axiom of the universe is that there is a God, he needs no explanation, he needs no proof, he’s there and he’s real. The great axiom, there is one true God and he’s triune in nature.

Well secondly, not only is he triune in nature, he’s also eternal. He’s the eternal God. He is before time, he’s during time, and he’s after time. In Genesis 1:1, the Bible says, I am the God and I am the beginning of all things. God spoke, everything comes into existence. So he already existed. He was eternal. Before Abraham was born, Jesus said, I am, because He’s God, He’s eternal, and He shall reign forever and ever, the Bible says. How do you grasp that? So many of the great truths of Scripture, and when you wade into the great doctrines of our salvation, and the Bible very often gives us the divine perspective of salvation, and so you get an eternal perspective of salvation, and we want to deduce the plan of salvation or the truth of salvation down to some sort of logical, chronological, step-by-step thing that we can grasp. But God says, no, I’m bigger than that. I’m bigger than time. And so we wrestle with those great truths of predestination and election and choosing, knowing that God’s speaking from his divine perspective because he knows no time. Everything is present to God. He’s eternal, he’s triune.

Thirdly, he has personality. He has personality. He makes plans, Ephesians chapter 1 tells us. He feels, John 3:16. He acts. You see that in the creation and many other ways. Genesis 1:1. God is not some impersonal force. He’s not some vague source of power out there in the universe somewhere. He’s not just a part of all that there is, that’s pantheistic thinking, that’s paganism. No, he is a true God, a holy God who is eternal, but he’s yet personal. He has personality. And by the way, that’s why you have personalities, because he made you in his image.

Who is this God? He’s triune and he’s eternal. He has personality and he has all wisdom and all knowledge. Omniscient, we call it. Has it ever occurred to you that nothing ever occurred to God? God has never come up with an idea because he knows all the ideas. He doesn’t learn anything because there’s nothing to learn if you’re God. That’s part of the joy of becoming a child of God as he begins to dispense to us the infinite wonders and glories and pleasures of knowing who he is. And we’ll never get to the end of it, because as I’ve said a million times to you, when you get to heaven, you will not have an infinite mind, but you will have a perfect mind, and you’ll spend infinity taking in the perfections and the beauties and the pleasures of God. He is in superior wisdom and knowledge. He has all power. He’s triune. He’s eternal. He has personality. He has all wisdom and knowledge, and he’s all powerful. Now folks, there ought to be an element of trembling in our soul that God holds us or we’re not held.

Jonathan Edwards, the great preacher of the early colonies in America, the great awakening that swept through the 13 colonies and most of Western Europe. Jonathan Edwards was a key instrument in that and he had a famous sermon he preached over and over and over and over. He was a brilliant intellectual for his day and Jonathan Edwards had a sermon called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. And he talked about God dangling you over the fires of hell, and you’re hanging on to a little fragile thread. What he wants to point out is how powerful God is and how totally you and I are dependent upon him. You walk on this earth. You don’t fly off into oblivion because God created gravity. Matter of fact, gravity, we call it a law, but it’s not really a law. It’s the personal present power of God.

How powerful. Well, you might have guessed it, there’s one more. Now, we could mention many, many more, but there’s one more I’m going to mention this morning as we talk about Romans 5:8. “But God”, thank God for those two words, but God, that while we were in this state of hopeless doom and down before God, he steps in and does something because he is sovereign. He’s triune, he’s eternal, he has personality, he has all wisdom and all knowledge. He is all powerful and he is sovereign. One writer said this means he has undisputed ascendancy. There’s nothing that rivals his greatness. He has supreme power, he is absolute. He is the most exalted. R.C. Sproul made this statement about the sovereignty of God. “There are no maverick molecules in the universe”. God is sovereign over all things, even the smallest details. He is the force behind every leaf that trembles in the wind and the placement of every grain of sand. Sovereign.

Pastors, Bring it down to earth, we can’t take that in. Good, good. I want you to know he’s bigger than your brain. Certainly bigger than mine, no amen there. But he certainly is. Well, that’s a good place to amen, a matter of fact. It’s startling to me that he would use a puny vessel like myself. But God thrills in using weak things to magnify his greatness. If you know my story, you would know the truth of that. Now, under sovereignty, I got to thinking about how the Bible speaks of God doing as he pleases. I love that. He didn’t call up the deacons of the Baptist church and say, is this all right? He doesn’t ring up the elders down at the Presbyterian churches. Would this be okay if I did this? He doesn’t even consult the women’s missionary union. He acts radically independently in his sovereignty. Here’s a Jeff Noblit definition of God’s sovereignty. God does only and exactly as he pleases. No outside influence can move him or thwart his purpose and plan. He simply does whatever he pleases.

I’ve got a few verses about this aspect of God does what he pleases. We’re going to tie all this together to the thrust of Romans 5:8, but hang in here with me. First of all, Psalm 115:3, “but our God is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases.” Simple enough, direct enough, plain enough. 1 Samuel 12:22, “the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for himself.” We’ve talked a lot about that, that in the grand purpose of God, the centerpiece person of God’s glory is the preeminent one, Jesus Christ. The centerpiece glory of God is the premier work of the premier man, Jesus, and the premier work is forming God a people. people. God’s going to have a people down here. Not most people will be his people, but he will have a people down here just like he had a people in the Old Testament, which was Israel. And why did God pick Abraham, multiply Abraham’s seed, and form a nation for himself? Why? Because it pleased him to do it. Can’t explain it. Abram was just another pagan unbeliever from Ur of the Chaldees. God could have picked any of thousands of men decide I’m going to start a country. God just was pleased to pick Abraham.

Numbers 24:1, “it pleased the Lord to bless Israel.” She wasn’t always worthy of blessing. She wasn’t always honorable and good and loyal and faithful. As a matter of fact, quite the contrary is true. Israel was often in rebellion, and to put sin upon sin, Israel would often partake in the worship of sensual and godly Baal worship, and they would plaster on the cosmetic of Jehovah worship so it would look good. It’s like so many of our Baptist churches today that are doing their own thing, but they still have the statement out front that we’re a good Baptist church. Well, God doesn’t care about your label, he cares about the substance. So Israel didn’t deserve these blessings, but God made a covenant with the descendants of Abraham and it pleased him to bless them. Now that doesn’t mean today we agree with everything Israel does and we’d give a rubber stamp to everything Israel tries to be, but I’m telling you, God has a plan for Israel, get over it. He’s got something special for those people. And he’ll bring a remnant out of there one day who will turn to Jesus.

Well, we come to our Lord, the prophecy of him in Isaiah 53:10, that “the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief if he would render himself as a guilt offering. He will see his offspring,” his church, his people, us, “He will prolong His days.” He’ll have an eternal reign with His people. “And the good pleasure,” there it is again, “of the Lord will prosper in His hand.” God had a plan and God was pleased with His plan. God was pleased in His plan to send His only begotten Son, co-equal God, Jesus, God the Son, to the cross and crush God the Son there that we might be saved and become the people of the Son. Why would God do that? It pleased him to do it. That’s why when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, initiating his earthly ministry, headed to the cross, Matthew 12:28, God speaks from heaven, “this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” I’m well pleased with him.

Jesus preaches, Jesus teaches, Jesus raises the dead, Jesus heals the sick, Jesus feeds the hungry, but many hated him. Many opposed him. Matter of fact, the most learned theologians and scholars of the day rebuked Jesus, called him the follower of Satan, the son of Satan. They hated him. Matthew 11:25-26. “At that time, in the midst of those type things going on, Jesus said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from [the so-called]…” I’m putting that in the text. It’s not there, but that’s the flow of the text. “…you have hidden these things from the so-called wise and intelligent and has revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this was well-pleasing in your sight.” God does what he does because he’s well pleased to do it.

Well, let’s build on that. Who is this God? Well, we gave several of his key attributes. We majored on the attribute of sovereignty. That’s why God, Romans 5:8, that’s why God would come down and demonstrate his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Well, what was God pleased to do then? Well, let’s unpack some of this verse. It pleased him to love us. And aren’t you glad he’s not like some human beings? Well, I love you in my heart. Well, if you love me in your heart, do something about it. Well, God absolutely did something about it. He has a love for us, and by the way, here’s what makes this fascinating. He has a love for us even though we are radically unattractive to him in our natural state, even though we are wholly undesirable in our sin, vileness, and corruption. We don’t fit. We don’t complement Him. We are not one with Him in our natural state. He loves us as the most unworthy and unloved.

Sir, you sit in this church building this morning, and I hope, perhaps, if you’re in sin, we all are sinners, by the way, if you’re in sin, you feel dirty, you feel defiled, you feel guilty, because that is true. But the good news is, in that state, Christ came and died for you. In that condition. Why? Because he does what he pleases, and it pleased him to do that. You know, the Bible tells us that sinful men killed Jesus. God made this sin of men, putting Jesus on the cross, subservient to his pleasure, his will, and his sovereign purpose. A big thought, isn’t it? Sinful men crucified Jesus. God in his sovereignty uses the sinfulness of men to be subservient to his own will to save and secure the children. It says he demonstrates his own love toward us, Romans 5:8. He demonstrates, but God demonstrates. Literally, the idea, we’ll build on this probably a little more in a moment, is that it’s a present active and it can be proved. He demonstrates or he proves and he keeps on demonstrating and he keeps on proving his love for us and that Christ died for us.

In this demonstration of love for, again, Romans 5, us who are helpless, who are ungodly, who are sinners, who are his enemies, and that’s all of us in our natural state. In this demonstration of love, he gave his son on the cross, and I thought about that. He gave his son on the cross, and in doing that, he gave his son to sin. Not to commit sin, but he gave him over to sin. The Bible says he became sin. All the corruption, all the pollution, all the vileness of sin was put on him. So he gave his son over to sin, if you will, though he never committed a sin. And in a sense, he gave his son to Satan. Because Satan, Hebrews 2:14 says, has the power of death. Satan has no power over Jesus. Satan has no power over the God, the Father. As Martin Luther, the reformer, said, the devil is God’s devil. He can’t do anything God doesn’t allow. But in God’s providence, the son was to die because the wages of our sin is death. And so Jesus dies. And evidently, the one who had the power of death was allowed to put his physical body to death. God gave him over to the cross. God gave him over to sin. He became sin. God gave him over to Satan who had the power of death, Hebrews 2:14. And God gave him over to hell. Hell, the punishment and the wrath and the horror of hell was bore in his body. He bore our sin in his body, the Bible says, 1 Peter 2:24. And he conquered all of them. He conquered all of them.

Just as an application note at this point, your salvation cost heaven its best. Our salvation cost heaven the best heaven had. So I want to ask you this morning, what are you giving now to serve this God who came to you, who loves you, who’s demonstrated that love for you, who has rescued you? What are you doing for him? Well, as always, I always start with the local church because that’s what is most important to God. You ought to have a dedication to your church. to put yourself in the center of God’s work and God’s ministry there. No, I’m not asking you to come up here five or seven days a week and spend so many hours, but we’ve structured and organized this church where everybody can do their part and be a part of building up the body of Christ, which is God’s will. Don’t grumble about that. Don’t begrudge that. And by all means, God help you to say that you are the exception to that requirement of duty. You’re not. The Bible says, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as you come together to edify, to encourage, to love, to care for, and even reprove and rebuke at times when that’s proper and appropriate. A man asked the old evangelist D.L. Moody one time, or he said to D.L. Moody one time, sir, I would give anything in the world to preach with your power. And Mr. Moody replied, son, that’s just what it cost me, the world.

Do you put the world before your Savior? He left His world to come into our world. He left where He was loved and adorned and worshiped and honored to be where He was spit upon and hated, brutally abused, rejected. I can’t belabor this because our time is going to be too short, but Luke 14:26-35, these austere, if you will, these penetrating words from the lips of our Savior, “if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Are you his disciple? He is not telling you to go out and initiate a hateful spirit toward your family. He’s saying your devotion to me is so supreme that if your family gave you an ultimatum, quit Jesus or you’re going to lose me, then you’ll have to lose them. In comparison, you love God that much more. “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” Verse 28, “which one of you wants to build a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he’s got enough to complete it. Otherwise, when he’s laid a foundation, he’s not able to finish, all who observe it will begin to ridicule him saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he’s strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000? Or else, while he’s still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”

So, compared to your love for Jesus, he said, if you’re my disciple, You love your family far less than you love me. And by the way, let’s be reminded now, balance here. No book teaches loyalty to family and marriage like this book does. But it just means that if the option is placed before you, you will always put God before even family. No man can love his family best. Listen to me, who does not love Jesus most? No woman, no wife, no mom can love her family best if she does not put Jesus first. I think I shared this with you. There was a young man whose daddy was a coach, but his daddy loved the Lord. And I’m sorry, he was a pastor, and he loved the Lord, and his son was a great athlete, and his son had a lot of opportunities. And he said, son, I want you to understand something. God’s called me to serve him. I’ll make most of your games and the important things for sure, but there are times when I will not be there because I have to serve my Lord first. Your children need to see that. Your children need to hear that. Now look, don’t go making a big point of it. If you go making some big issue out of this to promote your own spirituality as a father, you’re gonna blow it. Your kids will know when you’re phony or not. But putting him first is important. No, it’s essential.

Then he says, you can’t be my disciple if you don’t give up all your own possessions. He’s not saying you go this afternoon and you give them all away. What he is saying is you give up on them as the end of your life, as the goal of your life. You enjoy the things he gives you, but you constantly remind yourself, these are not my true joy or my great treasure. Christ is. Isn’t that pretty neat of him to let us have those common graces, but he does not want to hurt us. He does not want to ruin us by allowing us to make them more important than them because they don’t pay good dividends as a God. They fail us. It’s been the pattern of my life that when I want some material thing, if God can get to my heart and humble me, and I can get to the place where I would say, Lord, I would like to have that, but I don’t have to have that as long as I have you. Generally, when I don’t have to have it, but I would like to have it, and I tell the Lord, you are my main thing, then God lets me have it because he knows I can handle it. You don’t want God to let you have things if you can’t handle things and they get in front of God and ruin your life. Some of you’ve got children right now and that’s their problem. You’ve given them everything and really not given them anything. The material things are far too important. It’s not the amount of them, it’s the hard attitude toward them. God used very wealthy men throughout the scriptures, but it was not the things, it was the joying and the honoring and the making the idol out of the things.

So getting back to my text here, all that God did for us, what are you doing for him? What am I doing for him? Well, again, I said this word demonstrates here in Romans 5:8, “but God demonstrates his own love toward us.” And while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The idea is you’re a sinner and you continue on being a sinner. You were a sinner and you didn’t change yourself, but in that state, in that condition, Christ chose to die for you. The demonstration now of his love is more than just that he died. He didn’t die only to inspire and motivate you to live for God. That’s very true, but his death is more than just an example to motivate us. The demonstration of his love shown in his death for us and the demonstration of his love is shown in all that he secured for us in his death. His love continues on. His love is so manifested on the cross, but on the cross he secured for us divine treasures and gifts that are ours forevermore. The demonstration of his love did not end at Calvary. It’s carried forth in the application of all that was accomplished at Calvary. When Jesus died, God was not just saying, look at the example, look at his devotion, look at his love, but God was saying, in addition to that, grasp all that was accomplished for you in his death when he died for you.

We might summarize it this way. This demonstration of love when Jesus died on the cross includes the application of divine loving gifts, all secured for you I think that’s an interesting concept because Jesus absolutely succeeded in securing for you temporal and eternal blessings that cannot be taken from you. What did you secure for you? Well, the Bible says you’re a sinner, Romans 5:8, while we were yet sinners. The word for sinner there means missing the mark, but it really, and I’ve said it, and that’s true, but the idea of missing the mark is that you no longer qualify for the prize. You’re a sinner. God said, I made you for a particular purpose, but you’ve so missed the mark. You’ve so fallen short. I can’t give you the prize that I ought to give you as my child because you’ve so fallen short. You can’t get the prize. In that condition, Jesus said, wait a minute, I’ll step up to the plate. I’ll go to the cross. I’ll take their sins and I’ll win the prize and give it to them. Oh, my goodness. You see, you see, Grace Life Church, listen to your Pastor. I have no desire to browbeat you into faithfully serving God. With all every molecule of my soul, though, I want you to be so overwhelmed with his love, you can’t help but be faithful to serve him.

We’re not that great. I think we’re fairly normal maybe as a church. It’s just that so many churches are subnormal. Most people think we’re abnormal. I mean, if all you’ve ever seen is subnormal, then you see normal, you think that’s abnormal, but it’s not. But I do know that compared to what so many pastors have to experience and go through, they look at Grace Life Church, they look at the way you serve and the way you strive to be faithful. The way you minister in small groups, the percentages that we have ministering every week in small groups compared to our worship percentage has been incredibly strong compared to the average. That’s like a man comparing himself to the people down at the funeral home and thinking, I’m doing real good. The older I get, the better I feel about that, to be honest. At least I’m not down there yet, you know. Well, let’s don’t compare ourselves with funeral home type Christianity. But when people look at Grace Life and they see you, not Jeff, but you, almost with that exception, I don’t know an exception, people say, how did you get your people to do that? I want there to be one answer. They’re learning more and more about Jesus. They treasure him more, they join him more, and they love him more than they did a year before. And that’s what keeps them going.

You see that other stuff, little tricks and clever things and creative things and modern fun stuff and all of that stuff we might do to keep people interested. And if God had given me a witty or funny or appealing personality, if I was a happy jack slap you on the back kind of guy, you know, all that stuff works for a while, but call me in year 44 and tell me if it’s still working. I can only say 44 because that’s how long I’ve been here. That other stuff is not going to last. As a matter of fact, some of you have told me, Brother Jeff, if it was based on your personality and your demeanor, I’d have left a long time ago. Don’t laugh too hard. God doesn’t call the slick guys usually. He calls the weak. Spurgeon used to say, beneath the castle of despair, there’s a dungeon and that’s where I live much of the time. What a preacher he was though. Some of you prayed that I’d be faithful and you don’t know what God has to put me through to keep me faithful. I don’t need to get off on those things.

We’re talking about the demonstration of his love for us, that he continues to show that love when he died on the cross, but in all the things he secured for us through the cross. We’ll just outline it this way. When he demonstrated his love, Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates his own love toward us. And while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The demonstration was to the end of the application of regeneration whereby we repent and believe. which secured our justification, we stand righteous and just before a holy God, a new standing, which then leads to our sanctification, a new type of lifestyle where God is constantly sharpening us and growing us and hopefully we’re on the trajectory of being more like Jesus — and all the way to the final destination of glorification. So he won for Calvary my regeneration, my justification, my sanctification, and my glorification, and lots of thousands of subsets of things under all of those, and all of those are secured, and all of those are mine. If God did all of that for us, we know he must love us. God’s demonstrating it, present active verb here, he keeps on proving it. You’re going to go out this week and you’re going to get into something you don’t need to be in on and God’s going to call something in your life to make you not want to get in on that any longer and it’s going to hurt you and it’s going to trouble you, be some trial and difficulty and God’s going to, God the Holy Spirit’s going to whisper in your ear and say, this is your sanctification. I’m not going to let you go. I’m not going to let you indulge in that. I’m not going to turn loose of you.

Now here’s the thrust of the text, that he did do all of this for us while we were yet sinners. And that love, that love, just a few thoughts on that and we’re done. 1 John 4:10, “in this is love, not that we loved God.” You didn’t just wise up one day and say, look how virtuous and wise I am. I’m going to love God because that’s best. No, you didn’t do that. “Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:19, “we love because he first loved us.” We have that special unique love element in us that came in when the regeneration of the Holy Spirit came into our lives. And it gives us a special unique covenant love for other true brothers and sisters in Christ. Not talking about Christendom and the Christian culture that has a whole lot of unbelievers in it. I’m talking about real believers. You have a special love for them.

2 Corinthians 5:13-14. Paul writes to the local church at Corinth and he says, “for if we are beside ourselves, it’s for God. If we are of sound mind, it’s for you, for the love of Christ controls us.” Notice that. Not the threat of judgment controls us. Not the harsh correction of God controls us, but the love of Christ controls us. “Having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died.” Controls means that God’s love hits us with irresistible power, controlling us so that we focus exclusively on one great purpose to the exclusion of all others. You’re raising children, you’re trying to put money in retirement, trying to make a car payment, trying to make a house payment, trying to clothe your babies, and put shoes on their feet, and trying to take them to mall, and all the other things you’re doing. But as a Christian, behind all of that should be one exclusive purpose, that we might be effective for God in his church, that he might get the glory. That kind of love for him overrules all of that. Doesn’t mean you can’t do a lot of that. Many of you are doing far too much because the world’s lied to you and said, if you don’t do all these things for Johnny and Susie, you’re Johnny and Susie, you’re not going to be like the other Johnny and Susie’s, or most of the other Johnny and Susie’s are going to die and go to hell. That’s just the truth. Bible bears that out. So you do some of that, but you don’t do everything the world would want to do. But behind all of it is this one consuming, irresistible, controlling factor, Christ loves me so much I have to make sure the totality of my family is pointed toward him and his purposes.

Paul said to the Philippians, “this one thing I do.” That didn’t mean Paul didn’t do other things. He did do other things. He made tents. I stood on the marketplace road in ancient Philippi and they had the little foundations of all the little shops and in one of those little foundations and one of those little shops was Aquila and Priscilla and Paul’s tent making business. He did other things all to the all-encompassing overshadowing purpose because the love of Christ controlled him. You could summarize it with our theme verse, Ephesians 3:21, “to him be glory in the church.” That’s what I want to happen. I want my family to be used of God in a local church, a biblically, spiritually healthy local church so that God will get the most glory in the earth. “To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

So why would God, while we were yet sinners? Why would God, while we were yet enemies? Why would God, while we were yet the ungodly, in that state and couldn’t change ourselves? While we were in that condition, why would God show his love and die for us? Then why would he use the Spirit of God and the preaching and sharing of the gospel to change us? And then why would he seal us with the Holy Spirit and never lose one of us and keep us? Why? Why? Why? Because it pleased God to do that. And he’s the God that does whatever he pleases. Begins with Him. It ends with Him. It’s all about Him.