Expound: Love for God

Introduction:

Reminder of where we get the name Expound

Too much conversation about how to get teenagers to do thing that demonstrate they love God and not enough of us helping you see why you should love God.

Serving God as we are expected to do without loving God as we should is exhausting.

Mark 12:29–30 KJV 1900

29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

ALL. ALL. ALL. There is no room here for divided affections or allegiance. As Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters”

1 John 4:19 KJV 1900

19 We love him, because he first loved us.

Overcoming Sin

The secret to overcoming sin and temptation, then, is not sweat but sight.

We worship our way into sin. We must worship our way out.” (14)

Want to help your friends ““My goal is to help you overcome idolatry and certain sadness by pointing you to the all-satisfying, sin-destroying glory of Jesus.” evangelism

Some of you are going to be tempted to covet in your relationships

You are at the age where things start getting boring and you start looking for something else to keep your attention.

Little kids are curious and love everything.

It is like your taste buds and Takis

“You shall not covet” (Exodus 20:17). Covetousness means simply loving something too much, loving it the way you shouldn’t love it — like loving a boyfriend, or your husband, or your health, or your life, in such a way that it starts to undermine your love for God.

When you read the word, it gives you some specific criteria to test your heart. For example:

Does your allegiance to your boyfriend or your husband lead you into sin?

Does the pleasure that you have in being with your boyfriend diminish or does it increase the pleasure that you have in being with Jesus?

Does the enjoyment of being with your boyfriend increase or diminish the enjoyment you have in being with Bible-saturated, godly people?

Does getting to know your boyfriend lead you to know Christ better?

Does the thought of losing your boyfriend cause you to think of getting angry with God, or throwing yourself more fully on God’s mercy?

Loving God through His Ways

Psalm 103:7 “7 He made known his ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel.”

Moses knew the Lord not only through his works but also through his ways.

It is good to build a personal history of God’s providential care by reviewing and remembering the things he has done at various points along your spiritual journey.

Remember his surprising answers to prayer, the way he drew you to himself, the way he carried you through turbulent waters, the way he provided for your needs when circumstances looked hopeless, the way he encouraged and comforted you in your distress, the way he exhorted you through others and disciplined you for your good, and the way he seeks to strip you of your hope in the things of this world so that you will learn to hope only in him.

Psalm 66:16, 19–20

Psalm 66:19–20 KJV 1900

19 But verily God hath heard me; He hath attended to the voice of my prayer. 20 Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, Nor his mercy from me.

Psalm 77:13 KJV 1900

13 Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: Who is so great a God as our God?

“I was one way… and now I am completely different. And the thing that happened in between… was Him.”

THREE PSALMS ON THE BEAUTIFUL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

The All-Knowing God (vv. 1–6)

Psalm 139 (KJV 1900)

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.

1 O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off.

3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, And art acquainted with all my ways.

4 For there is not a word in my tongue, But, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

5 Thou hast beset me behind and before, And laid thine hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain unto it.

7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

The All-Present God (vv. 7–12)

8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

9 If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, And thy right hand shall hold me.

11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; Even the night shall be light about me.

12 Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; But the night shineth as the day: The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

The All-Powerful God (vv. 13–18)

13 For thou hast possessed my reins: Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.

14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Marvellous are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well.

15 My substance was not hid from thee, When I was made in secret, And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; And in thy book all my members were written, Which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: When I awake, I am still with thee.

19 Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: Depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.

The All-Holy God (vv. 19–24)

20 For they speak against thee wickedly, And thine enemies take thy name in vain.

21 Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?

22 I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me, and know my thoughts:

24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.

There is no higher calling than to love and worship the infinite and personal God of creation and redemption.

A. W. Tozer observed that what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

King David was a gifted man who was rich in achievements, yet his greatness lay in his choice to give his heart wholly to God. In the midst of his struggles, David took time to meditate and stretch his vision of the living God, and this provided him with a renewed perspective about the things that really matter.

Psalm 145

Imagine someone from a preliterate culture who stumbles upon a New Testament left inadvertently by a traveling missionary. The native picks up the strange object and brings it to the elders of his village, but because they have never heard of reading or writing, they are unable to discern the meaning of the mysterious black markings on the pages. They may come to revere the alien object, but unless an outsider comes and explains it to them, the living words it contains will never be more than dark squiggles on a gossamer white substance.

Our world is like that book; unless an Outsider explains it to us, we will reduce its glory to the impersonal forces of time plus chance, or we will worship the creature rather than the Creator. But this is a failure to grasp the higher levels of meaning—the markings are letters, the letters combine into words, the words conform to grammatical principles and form sentences, the sentences convey ideas, the ideas lead to aesthetic, ethical, and spiritual truth, and all truth comes from the infinite personal God.

The Word of God calls us to view the world and all of life from a divine rather than a human perspective. Our final integration point and source of meaning is upward, not downward, heavenly, not earthly, the Creator, not the cosmos. The world would define us by default; do nothing, and it will fill your eyes and ears with its system of values. The Word will define us only by discipline; we must choose to sit under its daily tutelage, or our minds will never be renewed and transformed by eternal values.

The last of the Davidic psalms exhorts us to fly with the wings of the Spirit to the pinnacle from which we can see everything from a biblical viewpoint. The more the eyes of our heart become accustomed to that vision, the more we will be amazed by the greatness, goodness, and grace of the living God. Psalm 145, a skillfully constructed acrostic poem, invites the people of God to let their spirits resonate with his Spirit as it alternates calls to praise and reasons for praise.

The Greatness of God (vv. 1–6)

“I will extol You, my God, O King, and I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever” (vv. 1–2). This paean of praise is prompted by the psalmist’s meditation on “the glorious splendor” of God’s majesty and on his wonderful works (v. 5). “Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts” (vv. 3–4). David understood that the human mind cannot begin to fathom God’s greatness, and he would have agreed with these affirmations from Isaiah and Romans: “ ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’ … Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” (Isaiah 55:8–9; Romans 11:33). We will never be bored in heaven, because God’s greatness and knowledge are boundless; the surprises will never end, and the joy will ever increase.

The Goodness of God (vv. 7–13)

“They shall eagerly utter the memory of Your abundant goodness and will shout joyfully of Your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and merciful; slow to anger and great in lovingkindness. The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works” (vv. 7–9). Because of his greatness, God is in control and will accomplish his purposes in spite of the malevolent forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Because of his goodness, God loves us unconditionally and without limit. Those who trust in him are therefore secure in the One who “loved them to the end” (John 13:1), knowing that he is always committed to their best interests. The more we embrace these biblical truths by faith, the more stable our lives will become, because our hope will be founded on the unchanging character of God rather than the ebb and flow of outward circumstances and inward feelings.

The Grace of God (vv. 14–21)

“The Lord sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down. The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and kind in all His deeds. The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them” (vv. 14, 17–19). The greatest human need is for that which we do not deserve and can never earn—the grace of God. When we acknowledge our desperate need for God’s grace, this itself is an evidence of his grace in our lives, since the natural pull of the flesh is toward the arrogance of autonomy. Begin each day by asking to grow in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and choosing to walk in the power of his Spirit.

Psalm 117

God’s Worthship

Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by his holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of the imagination by his beauty; the opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose—and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy of that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.

William Temple

When we contemplate the gracefulness of a flower or the grandeur of a tree, we properly respond with aesthetic admiration. Similarly, we respond to our pets with affection and at times to other people with self-giving love. If nature is worthy of admiration, animals of affection, and human beings of sacrificial love, how then should we respond to the infinite and personal Author of all biological and spiritual life? The biblical answer is clear—God alone is worthy of worship. Blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever belong to the Creator and Redeemer (Revelation 5:13), and every tongue in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, including all who have rebelled against him, will confess this to be so (Philippians 2:10–11).

The worthship of God is the theme of Psalm 117, the shortest in the Psalter. In spite of its brevity, this two-verse psalm captures the essence of God’s character and purpose for humanity. “Praise the Lord, all nations; laud Him, all peoples! For His loving-kindness is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord is everlasting. Praise the Lord!”

We were born to worship God. In Desiring God, John Piper modifies the Shorter Catechism’s answer to the question “What is the chief end of man?” For him, the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. We honor God most when his glory becomes our greatest pleasure; we worship God best when we pursue our joy in him above all.

The psalmist begins with an invitation to praise that reaches beyond Israel to all the nations. Paul quotes this verse in Romans 15:11 to support his argument that in fulfilling God’s covenant promises to Israel, Christ also extended grace and mercy to the Gentiles.

The Loyal Love of God

The second verse furnishes two wonderful reasons for worshiping God. The first is that “His lovingkindness is great toward us,” or more literally, “His loyal love prevails over us.” According to the Scriptures, God’s love is causeless, measureless, and ceaseless (see Romans 5:5–11). The more we think about these truths, the more astounding the implications become. As A. W. Tozer prayed in The Knowledge of the Holy, “We are sure that there is in us nothing that could attract the love of One as holy and as just as Thou art. Yet Thou hast declared Thine unchanging love for us in Christ Jesus. If nothing in us can win Thy love, nothing in the universe can prevent Thee from loving us. Thy love is uncaused and undeserved. Thou art Thyself the reason for the love wherewith we are loved. Help us to believe the intensity, the eternity of the love that has found us. Then love will cast out fear; and our troubled hearts will be at peace, trusting not in what we are but in what Thou hast declared Thyself to be.”

All of us need the security of unconditional love and acceptance, and this we discover in Christ. We can do nothing to make him love us more, and nothing we can do will make him love us less (see Romans 8:35, 38–39). Our prayer as believers in Christ should not be that we have more of him but that he has more of us.

The Faithfulness of God

The second reason given in Psalm 117 for worshiping God is that his faithfulness is everlasting. He has revealed his plans for his children, and his promises transcend anything we could have imagined. His purpose for us is our transformation—body, soul, and spirit—into the image and character of Jesus Christ. Because this is so, we must “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23; cf. Romans 4:21; 1 Thessalonians 5:24). Because he is faithful, God’s plans and promises for us will never waver. There is no real security in people, possessions, or position; sooner or later, all of these will let us down. Our only true security is in the unchanging character and promises of the Lord.

God’s loyal love and faithfulness should be the cause of childlike wonder and awe, but for most believers, these have become religious platitudes, mere words that no longer grip their hearts or imaginations. It is easy to lose our first love and forget what we were before we knew Christ and what we would be without him. Ask God for the grace to make you a worshiper, one who is amazed by his steadfast love and astonished by his faithfulness. Nourish your heart on high thoughts of God through devotional reading of the Scriptures, and worship him in Spirit and truth.