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“Do You Love Me?


(John 21:15-17)

I. Introduction.
A. Orientation.
1. We’ve been looking at what we need to be in order to serve the Lord effectively.
a. The Lord has given us gifts and opportunities.
b. The Strategic Plan will help us focus our resources to take the best advantage
of those opportunities.
c. But something more is needed: we need to be the kind of people the Lord
can use.

2. So far, we’ve seen we need to be:


a. Those who have spiritual/saving knowledge:
(i) We need to believe the Bible is true.
(ii) We need to see its value and treasure it up in our minds and hearts.
(iii) We need to be quickened and transformed by its truths.
(iv) We need to let it guide and direct our hearts and steps into God’s plan.

b. We also need to have a faith that is alive and active.


(i) The kind of faith that applies Christ to our souls.
(ii) The kind that helps us to see the reality of the things God has told us in
His Word.
(iii) The kind that gives us the courage to move forward knowing He will be
with us as He has promised.

B. Preview.
1. This evening, let’s consider a third quality we must have if we are to be useful
to God: love – we must be those who love God.
a. In our text, Jesus asked Peter if his love for Him was greater than anyone
else: Peter answered that he loved Jesus with a brotherly affection.
b. He asked him again, and again Peter responded in the same way.
c. Finally, Jesus questioned that level of love Peter had owned; Peter was
grieved, but still professed that love.
d. We’ve often looked at this interchange and thought isn’t that awful: Peter
couldn’t own up to the kind of love Jesus wanted, and Jesus even questioned
the love he confessed.
e. But if we stop there, we’ve missed the point: The reason Jesus asked the
question.
(i) He questioned Peter about the strength of his love because of what He
was calling him to do: without love, he would never be able to do it.
(ii) The same is true of us: if we don’t love Jesus we won’t be able to serve
Him well; and the stronger our love, the better our service will be.
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2. Let’s consider three things:


a. Why it’s important that we love the Lord.
b. How we can know that we love the Lord.
c. How we can love the Lord more.

II. Sermon.
A. Why is it important that we love the Lord?
1. It’s important first of all, because without love, we don’t know Him.
a. Love is the evidence of conversion.
b. If we don’t have it, we need the new birth.

2. But second, the Lord can use only those who love Him.
a. Faith and love are both essential to spiritual life and strength.
(i) Faith make us alive, it helps us to see the reality and importance of the
kingdom of heaven.
(ii) Love shows us how desirable the kingdom is and motivates us to do the
work necessary to gain it and advance it.

b. Love is the key.


(i) Why are we excited about some things, while others we avoid?
(a) Why do we look forward to vacation, but don’t look forward to the
dentist? It’s because our heart is in the one, but not in the other.
(b) Love/desire for something makes us want it.

(ii) The more we love the Lord, the more we will break though any obstacle
to do what He wants.
(a) When Peter denied that he knew Christ, it was for one of two reasons:
either he didn’t believe strongly enough (faith) or he didn’t love Jesus
strongly enough. Jesus’ questions to him seem to suggest the latter:
Weak love produces weak sacrifices.
(b) Edwards writes, “Such is man’s nature, that he is very inactive, any
otherwise than he is influenced by either love or hatred, desire, hope,
fear, or some other affection. These affections we see to be the moving
springs in all the affairs of life, which engage men in all their pursuits;
and especially in all affairs wherein they are earnestly engaged, and
which they pursue with vigour. We see the world of mankind
exceedingly busy and active; and their affections are the springs of
motion: take away all love and hatred, all hope and fear, all anger, zeal
, and affectionate desire, and the world would be, in a great measure,
motionless and dead: there would be no such thing as activity amongst
mankind, or any earnest pursuit whatsoever. It is affection that engages
the covetous man, and him that is greedy of worldly profits; it is by the
affections that the ambitious man is put forward in his pursuit of
worldly glory; and the affections also actuate the voluptuous man, in
his pleasure and sensual delights. The world continues from age to age,
in a continual commotion and agitation, in pursuit of these things; but
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take away affection, and the spring of all this motion would be gone;
the motion itself would cease. And as in worldly things, worldly
affections are very much the spring of men’s motion and action; so in
religious matters, the spring of their actions are very much religious
affections: he that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only,
without affection, never is engaged in the business of religion”
(Religious Affections).
(c) The Lord can only use those who love Him, because they alone will be
willing to be used.

B. How can we know that we love Him?


1. First, we need to understand that we can never love God enough.
a. Infinite love deserves to be loved infinitely.
b. We will never be able to do this.

2. But we can know we love Him to some degree:


a. When we seek His presence, in worship, prayer, or in our daily work; when
we grieve over the fact we don’t sense Him as we should.
b. When spending time with God makes us want more time with Him.
c. When we desire His appearing. Even though the Lord may not be coming for
a long time, we still want to see Him come: in His kingdom in power, or in
His Second Coming.
d. When we want to be with Him in glory.
(i) Paul said that given the choice, he would much rather depart and be with
Christ which was very much better (Phil. 1:23). You can only say and
mean this if you love God more than anything else.
(ii) When Thomas Jackson was close to death, Mary, his wife, remembered
that he had often expressed a desire to have a few hours’ notice before he
died. On the day he was to pass from this life into the presence of his
Lord, Dabney writes, “She therefore declared that he must be distinctly
informed of his nearness to death; and agonizing as was the task, she
would herself assume the duty of breaking the solemn news to him. He
was now lying quiet, and apparently oppressed by the [difficulties] of his
[injuries]. She went to his bedside and aroused him, when he immediately
recognized her, although he did not appear at first to apprehend distinctly
the tenor of her announcement. The progress of the disease had now
nearly robbed him of the power of speech. She repeated several times:
‘Do you know the Doctors say, you must very soon be in heaven? Do you
not feel willing to acquiesce in God’s allotment, if He wills you to go
today?’ He looked at her full in the face, and said, with difficulty: ‘I
prefer it.’ Then, as though fearing that the intelligence of his answer
might not be fully appreciated, he said again: ‘I prefer it.’ She said:
‘Well, before this day closes, you will be with the blessed Savior in His
glory.’ He replied with great distinctness and deliberation: ‘I will be an
infinite gainer to be translated.’” (Life and Campaigns, 722-723).
(iv) If we really love the Lord, we’ll want to be with Him.
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e. Finally, when nothing can quench that love.


(i) When temptations and trials can’t quench it; even when the Lord appears
to be against you, you will still love Him.
(ii) Thomas Watson tells of a mother and her nine-year-old daughter who
were about to die of hunger. “The child looked at its mother and said,
‘Mother, do you think God will starve us?’ ‘No, child,’ said the mother,
‘he will not.’ The child replied, ‘But if he does, we must love him, and
serve him.’”
(iii) If in your heart you really do want to be with the Lord more than
anything else and nothing on heaven or earth can shake that desire, then
you really do love Him.

C. This raises a final question. We all fall short of the love we should have for the
Lord. How can we love Him more and so be more useful?
1. Love is fueled by getting a clearer view of the object of our affections. So first,
we should consider more carefully who He is and what He’s like:
a. That He is perfect.
b. That He is beautiful: everything good we find desirable on earth is in Him in
infinite degree – beauty, symmetry, harmony.
c. That He is the fountain of all goodness. Everything we are, everything we
have, everything we ever hope to have that is good, all comes from Him.
d. That it was His love that provided the Savior, Jesus Christ.
e. That Jesus Christ obeyed and died for us that He might reconcile us to God
and have us as His own treasured possession for eternity.
f. All this beauty, goodness and mercy constrains us to love Him in return, as
Paul writes, “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that
one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live
might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on
their behalf” (2 Cor. 5:14-15).
g. The Lord is our portion (Ps. 119:57); He is our reward. If we don’t love this
reward, we’ll never pursue Him.
h. Of course, we must love Him to begin with before the sight of Him will
strengthen that love.
i. And we must hate everything that would lessen that love:
(i) Augustine once said, “I would hate my own soul if I found it not loving
God.”
(ii) If we should hate our own soul if it got in our way, how much more
should we hate anything else that might do this?

2. We must also use the means of grace:


a. The first/primary fruit the Spirit gives us love – the fountain from which all
His other graces flow.
b. The more you have of His influence, the more you will love God.
c. And the more you use the means of grace, the more of His influence you will
experience in your soul.
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III. Application. Let’s examine our hearts this evening to see whether we love God and
how much we do.
A. How do you see God?
1. Do you see Him as beautiful and precious? Is He your treasure? Can you say
with David that God is your exceeding joy? (Ps. 43:4).
2. Do you love Him more for His beauty than for His blessings?
3. Do you love Him even when He seems not to love you?
4. Do you want to draw near to Him? Do you enjoy coming before His presence in
worship and singing? Can you say with Paul, to depart and be with Christ is
very much better? Can you say with Thomas Jackson that you prefer to be with
Him?

B. Challenge: “If this be the sign of a godly man, how few will be found in the
number! Where is the man whose heart is dilated in love to God? Many court
him—but few love him. People are for the most part eaten up with self-love; they
love their ease, their worldly profit, their lusts—but they do not have a drop of love
to God” (Thomas Watson, Godly Man’s Picture).
1. If this is the condition of your heart this evening, then call on the Lord and
cleanse your hearts by faith.
2. If you see that you do love Him, but your love isn’t very strong, then meditate
on the Lord’s beauty and goodness and use the means of grace to fuel the fire of
that love in your hearts.
3. Remember, He will only be able to use you to the degree that you love Him.
Amen.

http://www.graceopcmodesto.org

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