-
Let's pray.
-
We heard about it in the song;
-
we heard about it in the first hour -
-
the grace and truth of Jesus Christ.
-
Grace and truth.
-
Lord, we pray for that.
-
Please deal with us in a way
-
that is not according to our sins.
-
Grant us grace.
-
And truth - sanctify them with Thy truth.
-
Thy Word is truth.
-
We pray for that cleansing,
-
purifying, sanctifying reality
-
to be in this place today.
-
Father, please.
-
You sent Your Son to this earth.
-
The Word became flesh
-
and He dwelt among us.
-
And because He did and because He has
-
and because He died
-
and because it is finished,
-
because there is salvation to be had
-
and there is a room full of
saved people in this place,
-
we would appeal to that blood
by which we were saved
-
and that cross work that was finished
-
and made complete,
-
so that we don't have to stand here
-
in any of our own doings or works
-
or accomplishments or merits.
-
We stand here based on that sacrifice -
-
the Lamb of God,
-
who, we thank You, has put away -
-
many of this in this place can say
-
You've put away our sins.
-
And we stand here forgiven -
a forgiven people.
-
And Lord, because of the kindness
that You've shown to us,
-
we pray, Lord, we want to appeal
-
to Your past mercies
to give us fresh ones.
-
We ask in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
-
The love of Christ.
-
I would take you once again
-
to the Song of Solomon.
-
This is a little bit of an aside
-
for a number of weeks
-
to the Song of Solomon.
-
But the purpose is to keep
-
in the spirit of Ephesians 3,
-
"and that we would have the strength
-
to comprehend with all the saints
-
what is the breadth and length
-
and height and depth
-
and to know the love of Christ
-
that surpasses knowledge."
-
And as we're seeking to explore
-
that love of Christ
-
and to span some of the depths of it,
-
as I told you last week,
-
my thoughts have come back
-
to the Song of Solomon
-
again and again and again.
-
The Song of Solomon.
-
It's in your Bibles right before
-
the major prophet Isaiah.
-
Isaiah's typically easy to find
-
even though the Song of Solomon
-
may not be so easy.
-
The Song - Solomon's Song.
-
The old preachers called it: Canticles.
-
Found right before the prophet Isaiah.
-
I want you to look at 2 verses
-
in chapter 1 of the Song of Solomon.
-
Verses 15 and 16.
-
Some of your Bibles don't supply this.
-
Some do.
-
The ESV has actually separated
-
this letter into parts.
-
And you can tell in the original language
-
there are indicators
as to who is speaking.
-
You can see it in the flow
-
of the song as well.
-
But in v. 15, it says,
-
"He."
-
And He says,
-
"Behold, you are beautiful, My love.
-
Behold, you are beautiful.
-
Your eyes are doves."
-
V. 16, she says,
-
"Behold, You are beautiful, my Beloved,
-
truly delightful.
-
Our couch is green."
-
Now, I am not going to preach
on "our couch is green."
-
You can take your own
meanings with that one.
-
I don't know what that means
-
and I haven't really thought about it.
-
But hear me.
-
Look back at v. 1.
-
The Song of Songs.
-
This is a song.
-
Yes, we say, the Song of Solomon,
-
but it's a song.
-
It's meant to be sung.
-
God gave it to us to sing it out.
-
This is inspired. Don't miss that.
-
This is in your Bibles.
-
This is inspired.
-
God gave a song for us to sing.
-
And I can tell you this,
-
that if you went up and down this road
-
singing a song about Solomon
-
and one of his harem,
-
I would think you were pretty weird.
-
That is not the kind of song
He wants us to sing from this.
-
That is not the song of songs.
-
"Holy of holies" is used
for the most holy.
-
"King of kings" for the greatest King.
-
"Lord of lords" for the highest Lord.
-
And so this is the song of songs,
-
being the most excellent of songs.
-
You know what that means?
-
Never has man spoken or written
-
a song to excel this song.
-
It surpasses all others.
-
Not only human songs.
-
Remember, if Solomon
was simply saying this;
-
if a man walked in here and said:
-
of all the songs that I ever wrote,
this is the song of all my songs.
-
But you have to hear God's voice.
-
This is inspired.
-
The Holy Spirit is saying, Christian,
-
this is the song of all songs
-
not only humanly speaking,
-
but divinely speaking.
-
Again, if you were to say that's simply
-
Solomon and one of his harem,
-
that is not an impressive song.
-
And remember just how fitting
-
the placement of this book.
-
You come out of vanity of vanities
-
into song of songs.
-
The emptiness, and then,
-
Solomon turns us to the fullness.
-
And as I reminded you last time,
-
this isn't one woman
-
with one she loves.
-
If you look at chapter 1, v. 3,
-
"Your anointing oils are fragrant.
-
Your name is oil poured out.
-
Therefore, virgins love you."
-
Or you look at v. 4.
-
"Draw me after You..."
-
Not, let me run, let us run.
-
As I said before,
-
there's no woman who glories
-
in the love other women
have for their own husband.
-
But if the virgins are those
-
in the spirit of 2 Corinthians 11:2
-
where Paul says that he's betrothing us
-
as virgins to Christ,
-
the whole thing makes sense.
-
Each of us as individuals can glory
-
in the love of Christ,
-
but we can glory in the
fact that other people
-
run after Him as well.
-
That's the flavor of the Song of Songs.
-
Now, when we come to v. 15 and 16,
-
the reason I want to take you here
-
is you have mutual expressions.
-
What jumped out at me first
-
was what He says to us,
-
we say to Him.
-
What we say to Him, He says to us.
-
It's the same language.
-
Do you see it there?
-
"Behold, you are beautiful."
-
Both say that to each other.
-
There's a mutual expression
-
of admiration and attraction.
-
Now, we know how we feel about Christ,
-
because the truth is, we feel it.
-
We know the attraction.
-
What makes the Song of Songs so precious
-
is that we hear God-inspired words
-
as to how Christ feels about us
-
and the attraction that He has for us.
-
And the truth is
-
it's something we would hardly believe
-
unless it was written here.
-
And watch this, in v. 15,
-
"Behold, you are beautiful, My love."
-
She never calls Him by that terminology.
-
Those are His words for her.
-
"My love."
-
As you go through here,
-
do you know what He calls her?
-
My beautiful one,
-
My perfect one,
-
My dove,
-
My bride,
-
My sister.
-
And that possessive pronoun: Mine.
-
You know what that reminds me of?
-
You kind of come across this
-
and you must maybe shoot past it.
-
You're reading Revelation.
-
You know when Jesus is speaking
-
to the churches in Asia Minor?
-
Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation?
-
He says something.
-
He gives a promise to the people of God
-
who overcome.
-
Listen to what He says.
-
He says, "I will give you..."
if you overcome,
-
"I will give you a white stone."
-
What's that?
-
Well, it's not so much the stone
-
as what's written on it.
-
Do you know what's written on it?
-
A name.
-
Does anybody remember what name?
-
What was it?
-
A new name. And listen to how it says it.
-
"A new name written on the stone
-
that no one knows
-
except the one who receives it."
-
Jesus has personal intimate names
-
just between you and Him,
-
and no one else knows it.
-
He says these names,
-
"My love," "My dove."
-
Mine - not just love - My love.
-
"My beautiful one," "My bride," "My dove."
-
So what are we talking about?
-
We're talking about the love
of Christ for His people.
-
A love that surpasses knowledge.
-
And as we're looking at these two verses,
-
v. 15 and 16 of chapter 1,
-
I want to say something that might
-
at first not register with us.
-
If I were to ask you,
-
which of these two verses
-
seems to most capture
Christ's love for us?
-
Which one would you pick?
-
You'd probably say that's easy.
-
Yeah, v. 15.
-
And undoubtedly it does
express His love for us,
-
but you know what?
-
As I looked at these
-
and I read through the whole book again,
-
I found myself struck
-
by how much v. 16 reveals His love to us.
-
And yes, you heard me right. V. 16.
-
V. 16 expresses Christ's love to me.
-
Think what Christ has done for you
-
that such expression should ever come
-
from people like us.
-
Think about the expressions here.
-
Think about what Christ has done
-
and how He's responsible
-
and what expressions of love it is
-
from Him to us that out of our mouth
-
should ever come such
expressions as these.
-
If you think about where
you have come from:
-
the miry clay, the pit -
-
if you remember the things you've done,
-
if you remember the things you've thought,
-
if you think about the stock.
-
Look at chapter 2:3.
-
2:3, "With great delight,
I sat in His shadow."
-
Now, here's what I want you to feel.
-
I want you to feel the expressions
-
of the church to Him.
-
Think about these.
-
I find the most amazing expressions.
-
She is saying,
-
"Behold, You are beautiful."
-
In 2:3, she says,
-
"With great delight, I sat in His shadow."
-
Now see the delight.
-
Look at 2:5, she says,
-
"I am sick with love."
-
Now think.
-
We're talking about the Christian.
-
Think about the Christian.
-
Think about you.
-
Think about you going through this life,
-
living in this world.
-
We heard "love not the world,"
-
but you're actually going along
-
and your mind is working
-
as you go through your day
-
and go through your life,
-
and such feelings well up in you
-
that you could say I find beauty in Him.
-
Or that you're even speaking to Him
-
on an intimate level.
-
You are beautiful, my Beloved.
-
Not just that: truly delightful.
-
"With great delight I sit in His shadow."
-
I'm sick with love.
-
I mean there's an ache
to have more of Him,
-
to see more of Him,
-
to hear His voice more clearly,
-
to have a visitation.
-
Look at chapter 5:9-10.
-
Here you have others in v. 9.
-
Others say to her,
-
"What is your Beloved more
than another beloved?"
-
I mean who is this?
-
Who is this that you talk
about Him like this?
-
"O most beautiful among women,
-
what is your Beloved more
than another beloved?"
-
And in v. 10 she says,
-
"My Beloved is radiant."
-
The NAS says "dazzling and ruddy."
-
"Distinguished among 10,000,"
-
or "Chief among 10,000" in KJV.
-
Or the New American Standard,
-
"outstanding among 10,000."
-
Look at v. 16 of Song of Solomon 5.
-
"He is altogether desirable."
-
Or as the KJV says,
-
"He is altogether lovely."
-
And here's the thing.
-
I would say to you, Christian,
-
when you have felt the most,
-
when you have seen Him most clearly,
-
when you've heard His voice
-
with most audibleness,
-
when you've smelled the
fragrance of His presence,
-
when the power of the Word has opened up,
-
when He has come across
most beautiful to you,
-
I would say where's the pen?
-
Where are the thoughts?
-
Who is the poet? Where is the songwriter?
-
Some of the songwriters are fantastic
-
in the way they're able to bring out
-
what we feel,
-
but who can put what a
Christian feels into words?
-
But the Song of Solomon
-
seems to capture it oftentimes.
-
And look, right now,
-
I am not speaking to everyone.
-
I'm speaking to you who
know what I'm talking about.
-
You who have felt this.
-
Have you ever considered
-
what Christ's love has done for you
-
that you could even be delighted in Him?
-
I mean, do you hear what I'm getting at?
-
Christ finding me beautiful?
-
I mean, that should blow us away.
-
What sort of expression
of love is that to me!
-
But here's the thing, me
finding Him beautiful,
-
that too is a massive
expression of His love to me.
-
All these, I mean, they are vehement
-
expressions of affection to Christ.
-
Look, think with me.
-
If you go looking around the world,
-
go looking on the Internet,
-
go through the channels,
-
do whatever,
-
do whatever gives you a
picture into this world.
-
Go through the radio stations.
-
You know what?
-
To find men who are attracted to women
-
on the computer screen,
-
that's common.
-
To find young men
attracted to computer games,
-
that's pretty normal.
-
To find young ladies that are interested
-
in being attractive,
-
addicted to their cell phones,
-
trying to make themselves pretty,
-
that's average.
-
To find people grasping for money,
-
movies, popularity, clothes,
food, fame, power,
-
there's nothing unusual about that.
-
You think with me here.
-
To find a man, a woman, or a child
-
whose heart jumps
-
when they hear the name of Christ,
-
that is rare.
-
That is special.
-
That is a mark of God at work in somebody
-
in an absolutely miraculous way
-
because that is not common.
-
Not at all.
-
The thing to ask is this:
-
Where do such people come from?
-
Go back there.
-
Go back to Song of Solomon 1:16.
-
Now I recognize that for a man
-
to actually speak
-
with some of these words
-
and speak them about Christ -
-
I don't know, maybe it
would cause some people
-
to be uncomfortable.
-
But I can tell you this,
-
the manliest of men -
-
and Christians should be men.
-
"Quit you like men."
-
Be men.
-
But you know what?
-
The purest men in this world,
-
they may not walk around using
-
terminology like this,
-
but God's man, he feels this in his heart.
-
He feels v. 16.
-
When he feels the realities of Christ,
-
he can say,
-
"Oh Christ, You are beautiful.
-
You are truly delightful."
-
He feels it in the
very fabric of his soul.
-
And the thing to ask is
where do they come from?
-
Where do people who truly feel
-
in the depths of their being
-
that Christ is beautiful and desirable -
-
where do they come from?
-
Seminaries don't make them.
-
The truth is churches don't make them.
-
None of us have a mother
that makes people like these.
-
Listen - in fact, turn there.
-
You're very close to it.
-
Turn to Isaiah 53.
-
Isaiah's right after Song of Solomon.
-
Go to the well known Isaiah 53.
-
All I have to do is take you here
-
and take you in your mind
-
back to former days.
-
And here we are.
-
Isaiah 53:2.
-
"Like a root out of dry ground..."
-
A root sticking up out of dry ground.
-
"...He had no form or majesty
-
that we should look at Him,
-
no beauty that we should desire Him."
-
That statement right there
-
given the chapter of
Scripture that it's in,
-
man in his fallen state is so backward.
-
"No beauty..." and look at v. 3.
-
"Despised, rejected by men,
-
as one from whom men hide their faces,
-
He was despised
-
and we esteemed Him not."
-
Do you remember?
-
Pilate said to the Jews,
-
"Behold your King."
-
And they did.
-
They looked. They beheld Him.
-
See Him standing there
-
with His crown of thorns.
-
His robe of purple.
-
I mean, never, never had they stood
-
in the presence of one pure
-
or more beautiful or more pleasing to God
-
or more willing to save,
-
and they cried out.
-
You know what they cried out.
-
"Away with Him! Away with Him!
-
Crucify Him!"
-
You know what that songwriter said.
-
"Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
-
call out among the scoffers."
-
Do you remember?
-
Do you remember those days?
-
That was your voice.
-
That was my voice.
-
Ashamed.
-
Ashamed. I can hear my voice
-
in that crowd.
-
I can listen for it.
-
Clint was telling me
-
that when he's over on the oil rigs,
-
he sometimes watches us livestream.
-
I said you listen for Caroline's voice
-
in the singing, don't you?
-
And he said, yeah, I do.
-
But you listen for your voice
-
in this crowd because it's there.
-
We didn't esteem Him.
-
We despised Him.
-
Despised Him.
-
That any of us should
find Christ attractive
-
is only shocking to the degree
-
that we realize it is not natural,
-
it is not normal.
-
Do you know what normal is?
-
"They hated Me without a cause."
-
You know what normal is?
-
"He came to His own
-
and His own received Him not."
-
You know, we get these guys.
-
They want to write these stories
-
about the end times;
-
tell us about the antichrist.
-
You know, he's going to come
from the European Union.
-
He's going to have 666
stamped on his forehead.
-
You don't have to look to Europe,
-
because the reality is all we had to do
-
is walk into the bathroom
-
and look at ourselves in the mirror.
-
You know what John said?
-
He said, "Now many antichrists have come."
-
We were the antichrists.
-
Anti means to be against.
-
We were them.
-
We would have never admitted it,
-
but that's precisely...
-
Man's natural disposition is such
-
that the Song of Songs
-
is a foreign language.
-
The lost man - it is unintelligible.
-
It's basically a parable.
-
And you know how in the New Testament,
-
the disciples asked,
-
why do You speak to them in parables?
-
And Jesus said this is why
I speak to them in parables:
-
"Because seeing they do not see,
hearing they do not hear,
-
nor do they understand."
-
You see, that's the thing with this.
-
The Song of Solomon to the unconverted:
-
what's that?
-
It is in a foreign language.
-
But I know we have a whole number
-
of people in this room
-
that do have eyes to see and ears to hear
-
and you do understand.
-
And when you hear these expressions
-
come from her to Him,
-
something jumps inside you and says,
-
yes, that's how I feel.
-
You see the thing is
-
Christ is not ugly.
-
He is not unkind. He is not cruel.
-
He is the Savior of the world
-
and robed in the beauty of holiness.
-
He's altogether lovely,
altogether desirable.
-
Man's great problem? Newton said it
-
in his most famous song:
-
"I was blind, but now I see."
-
Do you recognize
-
that when Adam took that fruit
-
and he brought it up to his mouth,
-
you can just imagine
two daggers right there.
-
The moment his teeth
-
broke the skin on that thing,
-
those daggers took his eyes out.
-
And the problem was they took
-
all of our eyes out as well.
-
They were gone.
-
We could see the ground,
-
the fields,
-
the weeds that now were in the world.
-
We could feel the pain that came,
-
the age.
-
We could see the sun,
the moon, and the stars.
-
But we couldn't see.
-
Our eyes had been put out.
-
We sang this too:
-
"Something lives in every hue,
-
Christless eyes have never seen."
-
Beloved, do you remember
-
when you carried around in your head
-
Christless eyes and Christless ears?
-
I remember it.
-
You remember how it was?
-
Jesus said it.
-
Jesus said it this way,
-
"those who are well
-
have no need of a physician."
-
Do you know how it was?
-
No need.
-
We didn't need Him.
-
We were okay without Him.
-
We could walk around. We could smile.
-
We could joke. We could laugh...
-
without trembling.
-
We could casually sin
without screaming in terror.
-
We could go to sleep each night.
-
We could talk about death and hell
-
as if they were fairy tales.
-
I mean, here we were walking through life,
-
this great big mouth of hell
-
underneath us waiting to swallow us.
-
And we were so casual.
-
So careless. So confident.
-
No thought ever crossed our minds:
-
"Oh, may He kiss me
-
with the kisses of His mouth."
-
Things like that - what? Christ?
-
We sang "Joy to the World."
-
He's a little baby in a manger.
-
I would see it.
-
Yeah, that crucifix up on the wall.
-
Yeah, that's Christ.
-
For me it was a word of cursing
-
and swearing in my mouth.
-
Some effeminate looking picture
-
of probably some Catholic priest.
-
Isaiah is spot on.
-
Look at it.
-
V. 2, "No beauty."
-
Isaiah 53:2, "No beauty
-
that we should desire Him."
-
What Christless eyes we had!
-
"One from whom men hide their faces."
-
We don't want to look at Him.
-
We hide our faces from Him.
-
We don't want to look His way.
We don't want to look at Him.
-
We don't want to regard Him.
-
We don't want to esteem Him.
-
And just see where Isaiah takes us.
-
Look at v. 4.
-
This is what's so amazing about it!
-
It's not as though you
continue reading here
-
and you look at it and you say,
-
oh yeah, yeah...
-
yeah, there was no beauty.
-
He was ugly.
-
Listen to it.
-
"Surely He has borne our griefs
-
and carried our sorrows."
-
V. 5, "He was pierced
for our transgressions,
-
crushed for our iniquities.
-
Upon Him was the chastisement
-
that brought us peace.
-
With His wounds we are healed."
-
Or v. 6, "The Lord laid on Him
-
the iniquity of us all."
-
V. 8, "Stricken for the
transgression of My people."
-
V. 11, "Out of the anguish of His soul,
-
God shall see and be satisfied.
-
He shall make many to
be accounted righteous.
-
He shall bear their iniquities."
-
V. 12, "He poured out His soul to death
-
and was numbered with the transgressors,
-
yet He bore the sin of many,
-
and makes intercession
for the transgressors."
-
What Christless eyes!
-
Do you remember?
-
Well, I have no memory of these verses
-
because I doubt I ever saw them.
-
I didn't care.
-
In the midst of my life,
-
if somebody would have
read those verses to me
-
it's like clear them aside.
-
I lived for the weekends.
-
I just existed during the week.
-
I lived for the weekends.
-
Make money during the week to live it up.
-
Words like this meant nothing.
-
Don't bother me with
that religious nonsense.
-
We had it figured out, right?
-
I mean, most of us,
-
we kind of come from the same stock.
-
A bit of religion - that was me.
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Just a bit.
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A lot of superstition.
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A good dose of self-love.
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A portion of self-righteousness.
-
We were good. We were good!
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Jesus? We had a manger thing growing up.
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Or my dad had a crucifix on the wall.
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Yeah, He's either a baby or He's dead,
-
but don't bother us with that.
-
We're pretty good.
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We esteemed Him not.
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And that is the world around us.
-
This idea, this Song of Solomon
-
is so foreign to this world.
-
People - yeah, show me how to miss hell.
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But the idea,
-
this is what it means to be saved.
-
So often, people just think
-
no lake of fire in the end.
-
That's not really being saved.
-
Yes, yes, that's not suffering
-
the consequences and the punishment
-
that our sins deserve.
-
But to truly be saved,
-
to truly have life
-
is to know God and to know His Christ.
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To know - intimacy - to have this love.
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We know this.
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Listen, the greatest thing
-
about the way God has designed us;
-
the thing that causes the greatest joy
-
and expression in who we
are as human beings
-
is when we are madly in love.
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There's no getting around that.
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This is what we find here.
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Brethren, how did we ever come
-
to esteem Him?
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What happened to us
-
that we looked up one day?
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I can remember that time in my life.
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It's like suddenly the fog was gone.
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How did I never see Him before?
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Who is this?
-
I was stunned.
-
(incomplete thought)
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How did this even happen?
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John tells us.
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We love Him because what?
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You see, the thing is,
we're incapable of loving Him -
-
and you say, I didn't get that.
What did he even say?
-
1 John 4:19,
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"We love Him because He first loved us."
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What John is teaching is this:
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The one has to come before the other
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because the one is
responsible for the other.
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The one produces the other.
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We're incapable of loving Christ
-
apart from what He does to us.
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Left to ourselves, the reality is,
-
there's nothing in us
to call forth love for Him.
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I loved everything else.
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Many other things.
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What did our Lord teach us?
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He said this -
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He said one day after He had fed
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those 5,000 people,
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He was talking about the true bread.
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He said, "No one can come to Me
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unless My Father who sent Me draws..."
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What sort of drawing was that?
-
It wasn't chains of a slave.
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It's something else.
-
Something pulled us to Christ.
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This is how He saves.
-
He saves by causing us to behold Christ.
-
Christ asked the question:
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What think ye of Christ?
-
How you answer that
-
says everything about you -
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not about Him.
-
What you say positive or negative
-
doesn't change Him.
-
But how you answer that question
-
says everything about you.
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And it says everything about the love
-
that Christ has expressed to you,
-
what He has done for you,
-
what He has done in you.
-
And we can go back to Song of Solomon now
-
if you're in Isaiah.
-
Song of Solomon - you remember this.
-
Chapter 1:4 - I mean, yes, you have
-
there in John 6,
-
"No one can come to Me
-
unless My Father draws..."
-
Here it's the church herself saying -
-
she's coming to that recognition.
-
"Draw me. Draw me."
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We will run. Let us run.
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Draw, draw, draw.
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(incomplete thought)
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Look, this is appealing to Him
-
to do something to us.
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Pull me.
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We are so willingly hard,
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so willingly blind, so willingly do we not
-
want to find anything beautiful in Christ
-
that unless there is this powerful,
-
effectual drawing of the soul to Christ,
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both at conversion and afterwards,
-
we will gladly run right into hell.
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We will.
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A soul's coming to Christ for life
-
is not the product of any power
-
or free will of man -
-
power found in man -
-
it's the result of Christ giving us life.
-
Have you ever read this?
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"Whoever does not love
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abides in death."
-
Think about that.
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To love is to live.
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To live is to love.
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We looked up one day
-
and we can't explain how it happened.
-
But Christ was increasing.
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He was growing brighter.
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And everything else was growing pale.
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Everything else was decreasing.
-
You know.
-
The Apostle Paul comes along
-
to the Philippians and he says,
-
there was a day my circumcision,
-
my Jewishness,
-
my belonging to one
of the premier tribes -
-
the tribe of Benjamin -
-
that was one of the two tribes
-
that stayed loyal to the Southern kingdom.
-
A Hebrew of the Hebrews.
-
He says but I saw Christ.
-
I saw Him.
-
I mean, the Christless
eyes were taken away.
-
And what does he say?
-
I count it all loss
-
that I might have Christ,
-
that I might know Christ.
-
For the sake of Christ.
-
Indeed, I count everything as loss
-
because of the surpassing worth of knowing
-
Christ Jesus my Lord.
-
We looked up one day
-
and we began to have such thoughts
-
as like we find in the Song of Solomon.
-
Do you notice?
-
Do you remember how that happened?
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Out at Community, we used to sing a lot -
-
we sing it sometimes here,
-
but from Revelation 5 -
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4 and 5, they both have the words:
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Worthy.
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Can you remember when you were lost,
-
you never, unless you were lost
-
and your parents made you go to church
-
where they sang Revelation 4 or 5 -
-
you never put the word "worthy"
-
in the same sentence with Christ.
-
Ninety-nine percent of the time
-
when His name came out of my mouth,
-
I was simply cursing and swearing.
-
Never did the term worthy
-
fall in the same sentence with Him.
-
Or the term "precious."
-
Or the term "beautiful."
-
Therefore - this is the KJV,
the New King James Version,
-
but you know this from 1 Peter 2:7.
-
"Therefore to you who believe,
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He is precious."
-
And the thing that was amazing
-
is that once you have the eyes to see -
-
because I remember this -
-
I could see and I suddenly looked around,
-
and all my friends -
-
all the comrades that I hunted with
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and drank with
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and lived my life with
-
and my co-workers,
-
my family -
-
and you look around,
-
and they're like the
deer caught in headlights.
-
I had such revelations to my soul.
-
I said oh, I am certain
-
that once I tell them,
-
they are going to see what I see
-
and they are going to jump on board.
-
And one after another,
-
they looked at me like I had three heads.
-
Unwilling to come to Christ for life.
-
But this is what He says,
-
"You refuse to come to Me
that you may have life."
-
All day long - the book of Romans -
-
"I have held out My hands to a disobedient
-
and contrary people."
-
But here's the thing,
-
those Christ sets His love upon
-
are made willing in the
day of Christ's power
-
by some secret, invisible power.
-
He slays that enmity that was in us.
-
That that despised Him;
that that didn't esteem Him;
-
that that was repulsed, that hid our face.
-
We didn't want to see.
We didn't want to know.
-
Give me a small christ,
a weak christ, a dead christ -
-
not the Christ of Scripture.
-
I can't tolerate Him.
-
Not the one that says
that I have to die to self
-
and carry my cross and follow after Him.
-
And unless I forsake all that
I have, I can't be His disciple.
-
And unless I repent, I'm going to perish -
-
not that Christ. I don't want Him.
-
Not the Christ that deals
with me about my sin.
-
Not the Christ that's
going to make me holy.
-
Not the Christ that's going
to love me so much
-
that He's going to remove
every single idol from my life.
-
I don't want that.
-
But we were made willing.
-
Christ exercised such a power on us.
-
He killed that enmity that was in here.
-
It was in the heart, in the brain,
-
in the thoughts, in our discernment.
-
(incomplete thought)
-
Something way beyond our power.
-
But we weren't forced.
-
It was like it was a sweet drawing.
-
It was us beholding that He was desirable
-
that makes us run.
-
He captures us by
capturing our affections,
-
changing the desire.
-
That's precisely what happened.
-
I was thinking as we
were listening to Jeff
-
in the first hour.
-
Those words:
-
We have seen His glory.
-
But you know, what glory?
-
He didn't walk around shining.
-
I know on the Mount of Transfiguration,
-
but I don't believe that is at all
-
what John is talking about.
-
His glory - we have seen His glory.
-
But that "we" right there,
-
that is not everybody.
-
There are many people who with their eyes
-
they saw Christ do His miracles.
-
They didn't repent.
-
They didn't believe.
-
Jesus appeals to them in John 5.
-
We'll see that when
our brother gets there.
-
He says they bear witness.
-
My works bear witness that I am Him.
-
It is a gift of all gifts
-
that you stand in the crowd
-
and Christ does His miracles
-
and you say,
-
I need Him more than I need anything else.
-
I've got to have Him.
-
There's a beauty, there's a power,
-
there's forgiveness.
-
This is what my heart has
been looking for forever.
-
When the crowd is big
-
and you look around and most in the crowd:
-
what's for dinner?
-
And away they go.
-
This is a phenomenal gift.
-
Brethren, do you count it
-
one of the greatest gifts
of Christ's love to you
-
that your heart aches for Him?
-
Because it is. And it's special.
-
And He doesn't just haphazardly
-
and randomly throw that gift around.
-
They are for His loved ones.
-
He said this, that drawing -
-
He said you lift Me up
-
and I will draw all men.
-
That doesn't mean all without exception.
-
It means men from all the nations.
-
There were Greeks there.
-
That's the context in which He said that.
-
The thing that is so
beautiful about Christ
-
is not like the beauty that we would find
-
in a woman necessarily or in a sunset.
-
Actually, that which Christ Himself says
-
has that drawing efficacy
-
is lift Me up and I will draw.
-
Do you realize His death, His blood,
-
the gore, the agonies,
-
the shame of that cross,
-
that's where so much
of His beauty is found.
-
It's found in those words
we read in Isaiah 53.
-
That is the most
precious thing imaginable.
-
"The Word became flesh
-
and He dwelt among us."
-
But He took His humanity - the God-man,
-
to do what He did.
-
Would you not say it is
one of the greatest gifts
-
He has ever given you
-
to find Him whom you have never seen -
-
this is what Peter says.
-
Peter says though you have
not seen Him, you love Him.
-
I mean, can you imagine it?
-
Can you imagine that
you have been given a gift
-
to ache for, to worship, to long after,
-
to feel the need of, to have a love for,
-
to find desirable this Christ.
-
And you love Him more
than anything else.
-
More than father or mother
or husband or wife.
-
And you've never seen Him.
-
That is a miracle.
-
That is a gift.
-
And that is altogether
an expression of His love
-
that you can look up and say,
-
You are beautiful, my Beloved.
-
Altogether desirable and precious.
-
That is a manifestation of His love.
-
Now next week, what I want to look at
-
is Him looking at her -
-
looking at us;
-
looking at His people and saying,
-
"You are beautiful, My love."
-
"You are beautiful."
-
Because we often don't feel it.
-
But I want you to see His heart
-
expressed to you, Lord willing, next week.
-
Father, I pray,
-
help us just to delight
-
in the fullness, the realities
-
of what it means to be loved by Christ.
-
This love that surpasses knowledge.
-
Help us, give us according
to the riches of Your glory,
-
Lord, enable us to comprehend
-
with all the saints
-
what is the breadth and length
and height and depth.
-
We ask this in the name
of our Savior, Amen.