You're listening to Key Life Fellowships Pulpit Ministry
podcast. We thank you for tuning in as we
learn from God's Word together. If you would like more
information regarding Key Life or to speak with one of our
pastors, please visit us at Key Life Fellowship.
If you have your Bibles, if you would turn to Exodus and the
34th chapter and we will continue our study.
I told you last week when we dove off into the the forgotten
jealousy of God that I intended on preaching one message that I
realized I would not be able to do in one message because the
subject is just so big and unfortunately so neglected in
the church these days. And that is again the subject of
God's jealousy. And last week in our message, we
discussed what provokes God's jealousy.
Not going to do that again to you.
Because I realized when we understand that we provoke God's
jealousy and many places in our lives, it brings great
conviction upon our lives. And very heavy that conviction
becomes as we think about all of the things that distract us from
Christ, how those things can quickly become idols in our
lives. And so today I'm not going to
revisit that, though we, we, we may occasionally mention those
things. Today I want us to look at what
God's jealousy proves. We we saw how God's jealousy is
prove that the fact that God is a jealous God and before I get
to the details in that I'm just going to tell you that
everything that God's jealousy proves has to do with his love
for his people. In fact, when we think about
God's jealousy. We must be is jealous because he
loves us. And if you're a good husband in
this room and you saw some man flirting with your wife or your
wife of flirting with another man as we dismissed this morning
and it doesn't bother you as her husband.
Well, I would question your love not to question the love of God
because God is always jealous in his love for us.
Why? Because he is a jealous God.
And we're going to see today that God's jealousy proves his
love, and we're going to see the depths of that, I hope, in our
time together. I overheard someone saying last
week, and I think they were kind of maybe trying to defend me a
little bit because the way that it usually goes here at Key Life
Fellowship is we'll begin at verse 1, chapter 1 of some book
and we'll walk all the way through that.
And I heard someone speaking, I don't remember exactly what they
said, but but they said something that normally here we,
we're strict in expository teaching.
Let me just help you with some of the confusion around
expository preaching. Expository preaching doesn't
mean simply just verse by verse, though verse by verse is very
important. Sometimes in our exposition, we
can actually really focusing on one verse and in fact 1 theme
from that one verse as we're going to continue to do.
And so we go back to the same verse that we were at last week,
right? No, no new reading for you,
though. I pray that you would read all
the things around it. And I want us to focus again on
God's jealousy. Going to see God's jealousy
proves His love. He says this in Exodus 34 verse
14. Do not worship any other God for
the Lord. Whose name is jealous is a
jealous God. So you learned last week that he
is tell you he is immutable and he's still just as jealous this
week. Let's pray together, Father, in
the name of Jesus, we come to you, thanking you that Your Word
teaches us the things that we need to know as believers, that
it is Your word that sanctifies us and sets us apart from the
rest of the unbelieving world. Look at your jealousy again this
morning. But I pray that you continue to
teach us the depths of that, exactly what it means and
exactly what it proves to us as your children.
That I pray also that that that jealousy be seen today by the
unbeliever and that you show them how jealous you are for
them and sued them as since eternity passed.
To bring them to this place this morning, that they could hear
about your love and your mercy found in Christ, that you would
compel them to believe and to repent this morning due to that
jealous love that you have chased them.
God, we pray as we learn in Your word these things, and we would
appreciate them all the more that we would praise You all the
more that you would be glorified through this.
And we pray, and we ask all these things in the mighty name
of Jesus, Amen. You will be a first for me.
It will probably be a. Last, for me, many times in the
sermons that I preach, I might open with a quote from some
Puritan or from some church father or from some theologian
in the past. This morning I'm going to do
something a little different, and I'm actually with something
from Oprah. I know, gasp, but get it all out
faint. There's a reason and there's a
purpose behind that. Oprah in the interview on the
topic of God in her side of the conversation went something like
this, which is very disturbing. She says, and I quote, she said,
I happen to be sitting in church in my late 20s and I was going
to this church where you had to get there at 8:00 in the morning
or you couldn't get a seat and a very.
And everybody was just, you know, into the sermon, she says.
And this great minister was preaching about how great God
was and how omniscient and how omnipresent.
And God is everything. And then he said, And the Lord
thy God is a jealous God. And I was, she said, caught up
in the rapture of the moment until he said, jealous.
She goes on to saying something struck me.
And I was like, I, I think about 27 or 28.
I don't know why she went back and revisited what age she was.
It really is insignificant. She's still just as lost.
She says. I was thinking God is all
present and God is, and God's also jealous.
God is jealous of me. And something about that didn't
feel right in my spirit, because I believe that God is love and
that God is in all things. And so that's when the search
for something more than doctrine within me, search for something
more than doctrine, she says. Because the doctrine that says
that God is jealous confused her, didn't it?
She thought that God was going to be humanistic in his jealousy
and somehow be be envious of her or her well, and so she thought
in that moment that God's jealousy has to be the direct
opposite of his love, right? Because she was all about his
love. And isn't everybody all about
his love? Unfortunately, they're all about
his love because they don't have a biblical understanding of his
love because his love. Unfortunately, like many, she
believed that God's jealousy somehow nullified God's love,
when in fact. As we're going to see today, in
our time together, we're going to see that God's jealousy
proves his love. God's jealousy.
And solidifies his love for his people.
And I want us to understand that.
I don't want us to be confused like Oprah.
I don't want us to be confused over the fact that God's
jealousy is a great evidence of God's love for His people.
And so we look at this this morning, you're taking notes.
I want you to write this down. God's jealousy proves some
things to us concerning His love.
We're going to look at the depths of that and what that
means. First, God's jealousy proves His
covenantal love for His people. Week I mentioned His covenantal
love and I said we will talk more about that in the weeks to
come. Well, here we are, and I want us
to talk for a moment about His covenant love for His people so
that we understand that God's love is based on the covenant
that He has made with His people.
It is not based on any, and God's jealousy for us is
evidence of that covenantal love.
When we look at covenantal love and in regard to God, we must
see this. It is covenantal love is a
faithful love. Speak for all of you, but I can
speak for myself. I am thankful that God loves me
with a covenantal faithful love because I'm not always faithful
to the things that I need to be faithful to.
But I can rest assure of this, God is always faithful unto
himself. He's always faithful to fulfill
every Thomas. In fact, Titus Paul says to
Titus, God cannot lie there in the book of Titus.
And so I know that when God says something, God means something,
and he doesn't. Mean it just temporarily, He
means it forever. And so when we think about His
covenant love for His people must be reminded that it is a
faithful love based on His faithfulness to His promises.
Fact Deuteronomy Chapter 7 verse 9 says know therefore that the
Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God keeping
his cup of to 1000 generations of those who love him and keep
his commands. He is a God who loves
faithfully, and his faithful love proves His covenant alone.
And the jealousy of God, that. US displays for us evidence that
He has loved us with this faithful covenantal love.
Williams first, though, a rather obscure Puritan who wrote a book
that I've read recently and entitled The Wells of Salvation
open this book's promises of God, and in fact, in a way that
I have never contemplated the depths of God's promises in my
life. Espersto said this.
He said that the same love that moved God to make a promise
moves him still to perform it. For his love knows no very nor
the least shadow of turning. We can bank on that church that
because God is immutable, he doesn't change.
He doesn't turn, He doesn't shift like the shadows that we
are. Secured by his covenantal and
faithful love for his people. It's based on his faithfulness
to his promises. It's not based on anything you
do. It's not based on anything you
don't do. It's based on him and him alone.
The word that he has spoken, He is faithful and he is true to
that word. We look at his faithful love,
knowing that it's based on his faithfulness to keep his
promises. But.
I want to also make you aware of this, or to remind you if you're
not aware that it's. Separate from our performance,
God doesn't love me based on me, He loves me based upon Him.
And his faithfulness unto himself God doesn't love.
My performance, it's a message that we need to hear in the
American church that is so inundated with this idea that if
you do XY and Z, God will then do whatever it is that you want
him to do for you. That's simply not the case.
God is a God of covenant, of love, and he has made that
covenant and he's made that promise to love you with
inevitable an enduring love. It's completely separate from
our performance because if it was based on my performance, I
promised you this, I've let God down enough that I do not
deserve to receive any more love from him.
But thanks be unto God. This covenant of love is not
based on Paul's performance. It's not based on the
performance of any of you here today.
It is based upon his promises alone.
Titus chapter 3 verse 4, it says this.
But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He
saved us. Not because of righteous things
we had done, but because of His. When His kindness and His love
appeared to us. He didn't save us because of any
of the things that we had done. Why?
Because all we had done up until that point is sin.
And so if He were going to base His covenant of love upon us, we
would definitely not be. Candidates to receive it he
still promised even separate from our performance completely.
Psalm one O 3 verse 10. The psalmist says he does not
treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our
iniquities. I wish Christians were listening
to that this morning. And why not for his high door
above the earth. So great is his love for those
who fear him. Why do you fear him?
Because by His grace He has ushered you into a covenant and
a promise that He has made unto you on His faithfulness to keep
His promises on His covenantal love, faithful love that
Spurgeon talked about when he preached the message entitled
The Drawings of Love. And he said this in that sermon.
He said He who has loved you and pardoned you will never cease to
love you. His love was not set upon you
because of anything in you, not be removed because of anything
in you. Oh, you see the depths of that
covenantal love? It wasn't based on you to begin
with. That's for all of you who think
that you did XY and Z right and so God then saved you, No, when
you were doing everything wrong, asking in your sin where you
were swimming in your filth. God, due to His faithful love,
brought you into His covenant of promise in Christ.
There's nothing you can ever do to be removed from that love
because it's a forever love. Oh, we see it's a faithful love,
but it's also a forever love, a love that is everlasting.
Oh, how many times does Scripture talk about God's love
being everlasting? Now please know this He's not
talking about God's common and benevolent love that goes out to
everyone when we talk about God. Love.
This is His covenant of love to His people of promise.
We will always remain in His love because it is a forever
love, an everlasting love. Psalm One, O 317, as you read a
moment ago, it said, But from everlasting to everlasting, the
Lord's love is with those who fear Him, with their children's
children, with those who keep His covenant and remember to
obey His precepts. Please know what he's saying.
Those who really understand His covenant of love will keep His
promises and obey His precepts. That is a mark of a true
convert. That is a mark of someone who
was truly in this covenant. They will enjoy that everlasting
love. Isaiah, 5410.
It says this about his everlasting love.
Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my
unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of
peace be removed, Says the Lord, who has compassion on and he
loves you, and he has compassion upon you based on his faithful
love, based on his forever love, that everlasting covenantal
love. Not only is that covenantal love
everlasting, but it's also enduring.
Oh, and I could and tell time after time after in time that
God has proven in my life that his love endures beyond my
stupidity and beyond my sin. His love is an enduring love.
That's why Paul in Romans chapter 8.
They're toward the end of that chapter, gives promised, he
says. For I am convinced in verse 38
that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, either
height nor depth or anything else in all creation will be
able to separate us. Who is he talking about?
He's talking about God's covenantal people, the believer.
He said, I'm convinced that there's nothing that can
separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our
Lord. The covenantal love of God has
us and will never, ever, ever let us go.
It's everlasting and it is enduring.
Not all creation, height, nor death, nor life, nor death, nor
demons, nor angels. He's saying this nothing.
Nothing is going to. Separate you from God's
covenantal love for His people. When we talk about God being
jealous, he reminded that he is jealous because of his
covenantal love for His people. God's jealousy proves that that
covenantal love is true. So God's jealousy proves that
covenant of love, and it is that love that secures His people.
Let me just set this out there for you so that you can meditate
on it and just ponder it for a moment.
No matter what you could ever bring against you.
Whatever charge you could bring against you.
It is not big enough to disqualify you from the covenant
of love that we in Christ Jesus because He is a jealous God.
He proves that jealousy by that covenant of love, faithful love
and forever love. Secondly, God's jealousy proves
His uncompromising love for His people.
Not compromised in the area of His love.
He won't allow us to entertain or to continue in meaningless
things that we love from this world and only take His place
and replace Him in our lives. God is uncompromising in this.
In fact, He rescues us from these things.
Now, I told you that I'm not going to go back and I'm not
going to revisit all of the idols that we.
Are susceptible to because they grow increasingly every day, but
I will take the time to remind. That God displays for us His
uncompromising love in this way by refusing to share His people
with idols. He will not tolerate it if you,
as a believer, attempt to give yourself to an idol.
Please know this God will discipline you and he will bring
you back. Idol is nothing to you again and
that he is everything if you were truly in Christ.
Why? Because God desires and He
deserves all of our affections. He desires and He deserves to be
loved 1st and to be loved supremely in our lives.
Therefore he refuses to share His covenant people with their
idols. Matthew 22 verse 37 Jesus gives
the command to his people. He says Love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
mind. All that you have to offer other
than your sinful flesh. And He says everything that you
have to offer, He says offer it to God in love.
Why? Because that is a response that
we will naturally have when His true love has been lavished upon
us, when we began to understand His covenantal love for us based
on His faithfulness, the fact that it is forever.
Our response to that kind of love ought to be to shun every
idol and to love Him supremely in our lives above all.
Things first and foremost, God desires, and all of our
affections belong. Why do you think that when he
gave the 10 commandments there in Exodus chapter 20 verse
three, he said you shall have no other little G gods before me
because all of those false little G idols, they're not
worthy of love. They're not God's people, giving
themselves their time and their energy toward these meaningless
demonic. Fallacy.
God refuses to share us with idols.
He's not going to do it. He's uncompromising in his love
for us, covenantal love, so that we can come out from this world,
so that we can come out from serving those idols, so that we
can come out from our sin that we once loved so much.
God is not going to share us with these idols.
Be that immorality, be that greed.
Idolatry. He will not share us with idols.
The psalmist understood this in Psalm 24.
When he wrote this, he said in verse three, Who may ascend the
hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy?
Place he who has clean hands and a pure heart, and who does not
lift up idol or swear by what is false.
Oh, see what the psalmist wrote there under the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit. That God is refusing to share
His people with idols because God is relishing and being our
only source of satisfaction. Be a list on our list of things.
He wants to be loved above all things and he will not share us
with anything else because he refuses to do so and he relishes
and being our only source of sad.
How can we stop there for a moment and just simply come to
the conclusion that God is worthy to relish, that we would
only be satisfied in Him That is His desire.
And isn't He worth that? The One who would give His only
begotten Son to show us the magnitude and the extent of His
love. For.
Isn't He worthy of us relishing in Him, finding satisfaction and
nothing that this world has to offer, finding satisfaction and
no pleasure of the flesh, but finding satisfaction in Him and
in Him alone? Oh, we sing about it a lot in
the church, but we don't live about it very much, do we?
Raise up a group of people that would simply just be satisfied
with his sufficiency to be satisfied in him.
He's uncompromising in his love for his people, desiring the
same thing. There's a psalmist in Psalm 73
says this. He says in verse 25, Whom have I
in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire
besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
What is the psalmist doing here? Being the only source of his
satisfaction, he's relishing it and God being the love of his
life. He's content and he's satisfied
in his relationship with his creator.
I wish that the American church would once again become content
and the fact that the Creator desires a relationship with us.
That he sent his son die on a cross brutal death so that that
relationship would exist. Knowing that he relishes and
being our only source of satisfaction.
Well, please know this church. His uncompromising love for His
people will not allow him to watch you continue to find
sufficiency in things that are outside of Him.
That means, by the things of this world, satisfaction, by the
urges of your flesh. Surely those of you who know
Christ know that He's worthy being seen as sufficient for
every need that we have. That's what Paul came going.
And His grace is sufficient for all my needs, and I find
satisfaction in Him and Him alone.
Psalm 60. 3 says this, Oh God, you are my God.
Earnestly I seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my body longs
for you, and a dry and weary land where there is no water.
I have seen you in the sanctuary and behold your power and your
glory. Because your love is better than
life. My lips will glorify you.
Long as I live and in your name I will lift up my hands, my soul
will be satisfied as with the richest of foods, with singing
lips, my mouth will praise you. The Psalm is there completely
satisfied in the love of God, completely satisfied with that
relationship. In fact, it just began to pour
off of his lips praise for how truly is.
God desires us. From us, He relishes the fact
that we would be satisfied with Him as our only source of
satisfaction. So God's jealousy proves the
fact that His love is uncompromising.
He's not going with godless things, godless idols.
He desires that we find true satisfaction in His perfect
love. Oh Church, when you began to see
just how perfect His love is for you, you won't be satisfied with
anything less than the perfect love of God.
You'll no longer be satisfied by the empty substitutes that this
world provides. You'll no longer be satisfied
with the yearnings of your flesh when you see the true deaths of
His love. The fact that He is jealous for
you because of this love for Him, all the more you'll find
satisfaction in Him. All the more He will be your
everything. Isn't that the problem with so
many who claim to know Christ? Christ is just another thing,
not their everything. Unfortunately, we've settled for
that Heaven. Can I submit to you this?
God has not settled for that. He is not lavished as covenantal
love upon you so that He can just be something else on your
list of somethings. He sent His Son to die on a
cross to be your everything. Surely He's jealous for us.
God's jealousy proves His uncompromising love for His
people. God's jealousy proves His
covenantal love for His people. Thirdly, God's jealousy proves
His committed love for His people.
Isn't it in? His jealousy that we see clear
evidence of God's commitment to love His people and to make that
love known to us. He went to the extreme to the
greatest extent so that we would know the love that I am Speaking
of. This very did love.
Please know this God's committed love is not His reaction to our
love and our commitment toward Him, right ladies?
It's not his reaction to our commitment and our love for.
Him love is based solely on His grace toward us, shown to us in
Christ Jesus, and He is jealously committed to love us
no matter. What?
Let me just prove that to you. Please pay attention to this.
He's rescuing those he has chosen.
In fact, in your Bibles, you know and you were familiar, I
hope with Romans chapter 8 verse 29 says this.
For those God foreknew that is to for love.
That means He loved you and eternity passed before you ever
existed. He says God foreknew He also
predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He
might be the first born among many brothers.
God's choosing on our lives is based on His preordained love
and nothing else. He didn't wait till you got a
few things right and then decide that He was going to love you.
Please understand this church. Before you were ever a sparkle
in your parents eyes, his affections had already been set
upon you. Oh, and please know this, He
down through the halls of time to see you make some good
decision and then love you based on that good decision.
No, He committed himself to love you in spite of you before you
ever existed. That's the kind of love that I'm
talking about today. That is why God's jealousy is so
amazing when we contemplated biblically so much more than
just our human envy and our human insecurity.
God's jealousy proves to us He's committed love for His people
even before they had been rescued.
He committed himself, rescuing those He had chosen, choosing us
based upon His love and His love alone.
According to Ephesians chapter one verse 4.
It says for He chose us in him before the creation of the world
to be holy and blameless in his sight.
If you read the last part in Love and Love.
It is his committed love. That shows us that committed God
to rescuing those He had chosen. And because the Father has
chosen us, he'll rescue us, and he'll rescue us through Jesus
his Son. How many people get caught up in
all this? Well, if God chooses certain
people, how will they know? They'll know when God
regenerates them to new life and he gives them faith to believe
in the trust in Jesus Christ and as Lord and Savior.
And as they surrender to Christ. You can just check that.
And one of God's chosen elect people, He made that known to
you in time and space what occurred in eternity past.
So when we look at that, I want you to see the magnitude of this
in light of God's jealous and committed love for His people.
We see very thoroughly in John's gospel in the 6th chapter.
He says this in verse 37. All that the Father gives me
will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never drive
away. So Jesus comes to this
conclusion. Everyone that the Father desires
to give to me will come, and I will drive 0 away.
Who come to come to me? They're one of the ones that the
Father has given to me. He goes on and he explains it
like this. For I have come down from heaven
not to do my will, but to do the will of Him who sent me.
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none
of all that He has given me. Why will He lose none of all?
Because of He love for his people, he's jealous for us.
He says I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise
them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that
everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have
eternal life. And I will raise him up at the
last Jesus there explaining to us God's committed love for his
people. That committed a love that
rescues the chosen, those who were marked out in eternity
past. Who now?
You because of Jesus Christ, because the committed love of
the Father. Because God is a jealous God and
He chooses us and he will rescue all that he chooses because he's
committed to doing that. He's also committed to redeeming
those he called. He's going to fulfill and to
finish everything that he has begun in our lives from eternity
past all the way until glorification.
Romans in chapter 8, if we continue reading after 29 and we
get into 30, he says in those he predestined.
Why did he predestined and elect us?
Because He was committed to love us, and those he predestined he
also called. And those he called he also
justified. And those he justified he also
glorified. It's as good as done in the mind
of God, because in his committed love he has committed himself to
redeem. He has called the work that was.
Begun in eternity past through His sovereign grace and the
eternal infinite mind of a triune God, that work that was
determined comes to fruition because He's committed to
redeem, all those that He calls to Him will be raised.
On the last day. Oh, the author of Hebrews
reminding us of this, that the Lord himself is the author and
the perfector or finisher of our faith.
What? Does that mean it means that a
jealous God and His committed love things undone?
If He started the work in you by off offering that work by His
sovereign hand and eternity past, He will carry it all the
way to glorification where you are perfect in His presence for
all eternity. What kind of love is?
This What kind of love is this? This is not sappy human.
This. This is love beyond even our own
human comprehension. But it is the love that the Word
of God describes for us over and over and over again.
Is his committed love committed to rescuing those he has chosen
committed to redeeming those he has called say to the
Philippians so confidently in Philippians chapter one verse 6,
the verse that I have clinged to many times in my life where Paul
says being confident of this that he who began a good work in
you will carry it unto completion until the day of
Christ Jesus. Now let me help all of you if
you think. That God began this good work in
you at some church service where you prayed a prayer and you
walked an aisle and you asked Jesus into your heart.
You were missing the entire story when it says that He began
a good work in you and that He who began that good work in you
will carry it on to completion. God speaking in eternal terms,
that means in eternity past He began a work in you before you
ever existed. He set His love upon you and He
was committed to rescuing you, and He was committed to
redeeming you in Christ Jesus, and He did everything that He
had to do work. He is the author and He is the
perfector. So be confident of that, that He
who has begun this good work will carry it on to completion.
He's not through. With you, Aren't you thankful
for that? That those who he foreknew he
predestined to conform to Christ, and those he predestined
he called, and those he called he justified, and those he
justified he did also glorify. That is all in the past tense,
in the original language, and it means it is done.
And it is done because God has spoken it.
Why? Because He is committed to love
His people, and so He jealously pursues us our lives.
In fact, truth be told, He pursued us before we ever
existed. Every element of your life was
so that He could draw you unto Himself.
What kind of love Father has lavished upon us?
This is committed love for His people, a rescue, a redemption.
Our glorification is all guaranteed.
Why Oprah? Because God is a who loves even
a godless Pagan who does not and cannot understand him.
But he loves his children, has an even deeper love, doesn't He?
Oh, it is beyond just a simple, common, benevolent love.
It is a love that is committed to us, eternity past, and it
will continue for all eternity future.
A wise man once said, there's nothing that you can do to make
God love you anymore. There's nothing you can do to
make him love you any less. He is committed, loving you, and
he has jealously pursued you. Because of that commitment to
love you, so jealousy proves that committed love.
Oh, don't be afraid of the doctrine of the jealousy of God.
Know that it is his jealousy that proves that he is committed
to love his. Well, that's good news if you're
any way like me, right? When we're constantly being
stubborn, we're constantly being drawn away and straying away.
Aren't you thankful that he's committed to us even when we're
not so committed to him? That's because he's jealous.
He's committed to love us even in spite of us.
So God's jealousy proves his covenant of love for His people,
His uncompromising love for His people, and His committed love
for His people. I told you His jealousy is about
His, not opposite of that. In fact, His jealousy proves it.
We have one more aspect that I want to cover before we depart
today and that is this. God's jealousy proves His
compelling love for His people. Let us not forget this.
Let us not neglect this in our understanding or in our
realization this morning. We are saved because of the
compelling love of God. You're saved because of that
compelling love. It is God who pursued us.
It is drew us. It is God who wooed us unto
himself. And how does?
He do this because he does do this.
In fact, John chapter. 6 Verse 44 tells us this.
It says no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me
draws him up at the last day. How does the Father draw us?
How does He compel us but by His compelling love, That compelling
love revealed to us in the gospel, That compelling love
revealed to us in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ that
God told love us, and in His love for us, He compels us to
love him in return. God compelled me by his love and
I know this to be true. Been looking for him and I
didn't love him. I love myself and I love my sin
and I love the pleasure of my flesh.
I was an enemy of God. Aren't you thankful this morning
that the compelling love of God, even his enemies to His feet to
receive His unending, undying, covenantal love for them.
He draws us unto Himself by this love compelling us.
He seeks us due to His love. Isn't that how He does it?
God compels us by His love. How Seeking us due to His love
He seeks us. Is that not what Jesus says?
I came to seek and to save that which is lost.
For all you people who thought you went on some quest looking
for God and you finally found Him, you didn't.
You can't find Him in your flesh because a natural man cannot
understand the things of the Spirit.
They are spiritually discerned. God must find you.
So if your testimony all these years has been when I found
Jesus, stop lying. You didn't find Jesus.
You know how I know you didn't find Jesus?
You weren't looking for Jesus. You're looking for the next
thing that would satisfy your flesh.
But know this even while you were looking for sin.
He was looking for you. What a lover of our souls for
me. When I wasn't looking for him
seeking me. In fact, if we have the gospel
right, and we do, God Incarnate came to this earth, walked
through the filth of the sinful, offered himself.
As a sacrifice when he didn't deserve to die, because he was
perfect in all of his ways so that he could compel us by that
love. His love is compelling, seeking
us due to the is that love that allows Him to seek and to pursue
dead sinners. Why would anyone ever go looking
for a dead carcass? That's what we all were
spiritually. Isn't it?
Oh, in fact, what we would do is we would go as we possibly could
from something that was dead and something that did not have any
evidence of life. In fact, it smelled.
It stunk. But God being officed of us,
pursued us while we were dead, wallowing in the stench of our
own filth. He left the throne room on high.
He came here seeking us due to His Ephesians.
Chapter one verse 5 says this. In love.
He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus
Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.
The praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given
us from the 1 He loves. And Him we have redemption
through his sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace
that He lavished on us. And He made known to us the
mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He
purposed in Christ. What is he saying there?
He's letting you know that God loved you so much this earth to
seek you out due to His love for you.
And his expectation of that love is that you would be compelled
to love him in return. Isn't that the natural reaction?
Isn't that the reaction that that John experienced when he
said that I love him because he first loved me?
Hear about that compelling love that when we were dead in our
sins. Christ Jesus died for us.
That's what he says in the 2nd chapter of Ephesians, isn't it?
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and in your
sins, which you used to live when you follow the But because
of His great love for us. Why?
Because of his great love for us, God, who's rich in mercy,
made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in
transgression. It is by grace you have been
saved. It is His compelling love that
has saved you. Compelling love.
That is the reason why you reciprocate love in return to
Him. He sought us due to His love
again, not because we were worthy, because we had anything
to offer. Let's all be moment.
Does anyone here have anything to offer a God who is in need of
nothing? So it can't be that God saw.
That Kirk Hall had something to offer him.
I was dead. Dead people have nothing.
We put them in the ground and we throw.
Dirt over the top of them. They have nothing to offer
anyone in this life any longer. However, God in his great mercy
chose to love me anyway. Deuteronomy 7.
He speaks of his and he says this, The Lord did not set his
affection on you and choose you, verse 7 because you were more
numerous than other people, for you were the fewest of all
peoples. What is God saying?
You had nothing to offer me, but it was because the Lord loved
you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that He
brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the
land of our Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
What is he reminding us of there?
He's reminding us of the fact that God seeks us to do to his
love and nothing else, and the fact that he seeks us ought to
draw us unto him, shouldn't it to know that I and had nothing
to offer and he sought me that he may lavish his love upon me.
Now I want to go to a biblical illustration that I intend to go
to, but I'm going to now Lazarus, the brother of Martha
and Mary. Oh, just thank for a.
Physically brought back the life from the dead.
Now if we would have read about that or if we had would have
witnessed it as those did in his day.
Lazarus come forth and Lazarus coming out of the tomb now
alive. He's been dead for four days.
Scripture says he was already stinking in graves close and
Jesus said unwrap him, set him free.
Why he's alive. Jesus making it very clear to
all who are there. I am the resurrection and the
life. We would think that there was
something wrong with Lazarus if he wasn't grateful for the fact
that Jesus raised him from the dead, wouldn't we?
And those of you who are in Christ, please know this.
He's done oh so much more for you.
He raised Lazarus temporarily. He eventually died just like we
all do. It is appointed on to die.
A man wants to die after this the judgement.
But to us who are in Christ, guess what he did when He sought
us by His compelling love? He raised us a new life forever.
He raised us and promised us eternal life because of our
risen Savior based completely on His love.
If that doesn't compel you to bow down and to worship Him and
to thank Him and to praise Him, you have no criticism toward
Lazarus if he wouldn't have been thankful because Lazarus was
thankful for the temporal and you won't be thankful for the
always. Love compels because it is
compelling in its nature, and God's jealousy proves His
compelling. Love compels us by His love
seeking us due to this love. It's showing us the depths of
His love. I'm thankful that God has truly
shown His love, at least what we can contain in our humanity.
Now we can't fully know the depths of His love because some
of it is just still a mystery, isn't it?
I find that it's a mystery and rightfully labeled and described
as a mystery because most days I wake up yourself, God, why would
you ever love me? God, how could you ever love me?
God, I have nothing to offer you and you've been so good and so
kind and so gracious to me. I don't fully understand it, but
I do understand that this part of it that He's allowed us to
understand and reveal to us in His words so that we can begin
to grasp the depths of His love. Is that not what Paul prayed for
the church that they would be able to grasp how why vast is
the love of God? I pray constantly.
Well, let me see more of this. Let me understand this just a
little bit more because the more that I dive off into His love,
the more that I am consumed by it.
He's made known the depths of His love.
Through the gospel if you're incredible.
Don't you that it is through the gospel that He has made known
the depths of His love? In fact, first John chapter 4
verse 9 says this. This is how God showed His love
among us. He sent His one and only Son
into the world that we might live through Him.
Verse 10 says love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us
and send his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
You want to begin to understand the depths of God's love.
It begins right there. The fact that God would love you
enough even though you didn't deserve it, to send his to this
world as an atoning sacrifice for your sins.
Jesus Christ the sinless 1 He who knew no sin, who became sin
so that you might become the righteousness of God.
Oh, you want? To begin to understand that the
depth of His love starts there with start in Romans chapter 5
verse 8 where plainly says this, but God demonstrates his own
love for us in this while we were still sinners, Christ died
for us. Oh, what compelling love.
Why am I Christ? Because He loved me when I was
at my worst. When I'm talking to people about
Jesus on the street or in the stores or wherever I may find
myself, I begin to share the gospel with them.
And I get to this part, Romans 58 to do something for me right
now. Don't say it out loud because
I'm not going to tell you what my.
Darkest Hour is But I want you to think of the worst thing that
you've ever done, something you've never told anyone else,
something that you were dreadfully ashamed of.
And generally they'll close their eyes.
I'll see you got it in your mind.
Oh yeah. Began to tear up because they
know how detestable they have been, as I know the same.
And I remind them of this, that that is where Christ Jesus died
for you. Not when you've got it all
together, where you had everything right, where your
life was. Looking He died for you, and he
demonstrates his love for you in this that while you were a
Sinner, while you were the worst of the world, he died for you.
Oh, is that not compelling? Is that not compelling love?
Is that not love that draws us unto Him?
Oh, who can love us like that? No one but God, no one showing
us the depths. Of his love is a cross.
It was sacrifice expressing that love for the sole reason so that
centers will be compelled and drawn to believe.
Oh, we, we speak of John all the time.
Let's think of it in light of what we're saying here today and
see the depths of it. John 316 simply says, For God so
loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever
believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal.
What is that designed to do that is designed to compel a person
to believe? It is that way by design to hear
that God loved you and that he sent his Son to die on the cross
to rescue you, and that whoever will not perish but have
everlasting or eternal life. If that doesn't compel you, let
me help you, ma'am. Sir, if that doesn't compel you,
you are so lost in your sin that your conscience has been so
seared that you are in a reprobate condition, and unless
God intervene, there is no hope. But for those who God desires to
lavish His love upon today, when they hear of the cross and they
hear of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, it is in that message
that the Spirit quickens them, the message that God births
faith in them to believe and to trust in Jesus Christ.
Why is he doing this? Because his love is a compelling
love. Don't just.
Read past John 316 because it's your good luck verse.
What belongs not in the life of a Christian.
We don't put our faith in luck, we put our faith in the
sacrifice. I send in Him alone, thankful
for the compelling love of God that was demonstrated through
Christ on the cross. It is that love that compels us
to believe when we hear that God so loved us that He did the
unthinkable. How many of you in this room
right now have a son? You raise your hand, raise it,
raise it high, give your son up for a worthless group of people
who hate you and hate everything that you stand for.
Oh no, it becomes real then, doesn't it?
We began to see just what happened at the cross.
God and His compelling love loved you with an unthinkable
love. If that doesn't draw you to the
feet of Jesus Christ and faith and repentance, nothing you, you
are a hopeless case. Oh, but my prayers this that
today God would compel you by that love that He would make
known to you today. Love, the love of God in Christ.
It came to this earth, it died on a cross, it was brutally
tortured, then rose again on the third day.
Promising you life, promising you life eternal.
How could you run from that? How could you run from that?
No, that's the kind of love that we run too.
No one comes to him unless the Father who sent him.
How does he draw you? He tells you the truth.
God so loved you that He sent his only Son to this earth to
die in your place if you will. Just believe.
Believe and trust in Jesus Christ.
Trust in the Capelli God has for His people.
Also, we've taken the time to look at the jealousy of God for
reason why? Because there's great proof in
God's jealousy of God's love. God's jealousy proves His
covenant of love, His uncompromising love, His
committed, and His compelling love.
May we be compelled by that love today, Christian.
May you be compelled for maybe the first time in a long time,
to humble yourself and get on your face.
Thank God for his love like you haven't in a while, or maybe
never, to thank him that he is a jealous God, Not to be afraid of
that jealousy, but to be thankful for it.
Thank you that you are a jealous God who has pursued me by your
love even before my life began. And thank you that that love
will continue to pursue me and I will enjoy that presence for all
eternity because I one day will dwell with you and you with me.
Thank you, Lord, for your love, your covenant of love, your
uncompromising love, your committed love, and your
compelling love. Because without that I would be
lost. And were God not jealous, I
wouldn't be loved. I'm thankful for that today.
To the unbeliever here today, I pray for you this morning that
you would be compelled, that you would be compelled not by the
words of the, but that you would be compelled by the Word of God,
Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that has been shown to you today
and has been revealed to you today, that you would see your
need for His love. You would see your need for His
and His mercy, and you would see His willingness to give it to
all who will repent and trust in Him.
I pray today that you would do just that, that you would repent
of your sin, that you would trust in Jesus Christ by faith
as your Lord and Savior, knowing full well that His love upon
you. As John said, what manner of
love is this? What manner of love is this and
we should be called the children of God.
He was overwhelmed by it. I pray that you're overwhelmed
by his love Today, the faith in Jesus Christ and repentance of
your sin. Let's pray together.
Father, in the name of Jesus, we come to you, thanking you for
your word. Lord, I am thankful that in all
my insufficiencies and my inabilities, word is sufficient
and able. Lord, as your word is gone forth
today, I pray that your will be accomplished.
And if it be your will today to rescue those who are lost in our
midst, Lord, I pray that Your mercy would fall upon them.
Lord I. Pray that your.
Saints, your is even convicted today in their lives because of
this word. I pray that we would rejoice
that we do have a jealous God and that His jealousy simply
proves just how much He loves us.
Rest in that love. I would be thankful for that
love that we tell of that love to others.
We pray and we ask things in Christ's name.
Amen. You've been listening to Key
Life Fellowship's Pulpit Ministry podcast for more
teaching from God's Word.