I Love the Lord Because - Psalm 116 1

Only you can make it come alive. Only you can take the words on the printed page and stamp them fresh in our minds and our hearts, that a living word by the Holy Spirit would come to us through your ministry, which is supernatural, which is experiential. We need you, Lord, to speak. We ask you to draw near and let us hear not only the words of a limited man, but let us hear the voice of our Great Shepherd, who is not limited, who is awesome, who is great and greatly to be praised. So Lord, we commit ourselves to speak so as to please you and to hear so as to receive what you have for each one of us. Grab our attention, give us focus, give us ears to hear and faith to lay hold of what you say. For the glory of Christ we pray, Amen. David was a lover of God, with his faults, with his weaknesses, he loved God and he actively expressed it. I don't think I do that enough, often enough, to actively express to him or about him the love I have. The true Christian loves God sincerely, not hypocritically, not faking it. The true believer loves God and he or she loves Jesus Christ. To you that believe, he is what? Precious. If you know Christ today, he's precious to you and you have the love of God in your heart. It's there. You know it and you feel it. But I want to talk today about how David expresses it. The love he had for God was expressed here. David in this song, it's extremely personal. In fact, the proverbs, I, me, mine, are used 34 times. I counted them twice and I wasn't good at math, but I think I'm right. Not because he was being self-centered, but because he's being very personal here. It's autobiographical. He's expressing this relationship of grace he has with the Lord, a personal relationship of love, vertical, communicated love. John says what? We love him because he first loved us. So there's this vertical love. His love comes to us by the Holy Spirit. We experience it and we know it because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We experience the love of God and we know it and we appreciate it. Here David expresses love from his heart. He does it verbally. Psalm 16 is David loving the Lord because, that word is used twice, because of what God had done for him. Verse 1, if you summarize it, it is love expressed because of mercy received. Verses 2-4, then he states what mercies were received and how they impacted him. Love expressed because mercies are received. When was the last time you and I stopped and we just said out loud in prayer, I love you Lord, I love the Lord because, and you rehearse his mercies for you. Love expressed, love confessed by the one who has been shown mercy. This is verbal. This is communication with him and with others. Vertically, I love you Lord because, and with others, I love the Lord because, from the heart. Love possessed must become love expressed because if not, it's clogged up in there, there's a log jam and the artery needs to be cleared out. Love expressed, experienced and possessed needs to be expressed. Love felt in your heart and your mind about the Lord at times, we feel it and it can come and go. You feel sometimes, this last night, when I laid down to go to sleep, I changed up the verse on that hymn, More love to thee, O Christ, more love to thee. Let this my prayer be as I lay my head down. I changed it up, that's okay. Expressing love for him, expressing love to him, expressing more desire for him. Love in our minds and in our affections needs to be stated and verbalized and it's often not enough. Love inside needs to get outside where God is praised because of the love that he's shown for us. David says it, I love the Lord, verse one. This agape testimony comes from the psalmist's heart, it comes from his heart. That loves because, he said, loving him and expressing that because, that word is in verse one and it's in verse two. I love the Lord because, what, because he's done so. Is it right to love the Lord, not only because he's God and worthy, or is it right to love him because of mercies received? Are both right? Should we love him more because of what he's done for us? The answer is yes. You see, we don't just love Christ theologically. We don't love him because we read Greed and Systematic and say, oh, this is great about loving God. Yeah, this is in the Bible, therefore I love him. No, love is experiential. We love him, we feel it when we receive the benefits of his mercy to us. Look what he's done for me, look what he just did for us. Look how he's shown mercy to us. Why does God, why does David here say, I love the Lord because? He says it because it is right to love him because. It's good to love him more and to express it because of what he's done for you. Every one of us this morning, if we were asked, why do you love the Lord? You would have a because. You'd have several becauses. Some of you would have a lot of becauses and you could start naming them. Because we only love when we've come to experience him and his mercies. Why do you love Christ? You've got an answer. Because, let's just start, he chose me and he saved me. That's a because. Right down to, Ford could say, I love him because he gave me a great wife. Amen. Every mercy that comes from God should elicit and produce the flow of love in our heart more where it gets out. We think it, and we say it, and we testify it, but we're often mute. Too much about it. Those mercies God gave David, the mercies that come to us produce love in the heart. The mercies that God does for us, his blessings, is increased toward us. The great grace he showers on us, what he does for us, when we see it and experience it, it produces love and affection in our heart story that then ought to get out, expressed to him and to others. Why do you love Christ this morning if you don't? Because he had mercy on you. Because he turned to you. Because when you were dead in trespassing sins, he quickened you with life and he made you alive. And he washed you off and he straightened you out and he made you his son and he brought you into the family. He gave you a new heart and a new name. He put his love in your heart. That's why we love him. John said it. We love him because he first loved us. I love the Lord because he's done these things. Now David gets into that here in the text. He says, I love the Lord because he has heard my voice. David had been crying out. He was in a hard place. Everything had closed in on him. You know how often that happened with him. Hardships, distresses, dangers, being near death, not knowing what was going to happen. Probably at times without food. Being so discouraged that his men wanted to kill him. David cried out to God and in his need he says, God, I love the Lord because he has heard my cry. He listened to me and he answered me as he says in Psalm 40. He brought me out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, set my feet on a rock, established my goings, and put a new song of praise in my mouth. Even praise to our God. Death had surrounded me. Hell like pains had gotten a hold of me. I had trouble and sorrow, but God had mercy on me. Do we recognize this? Every mercy that falls from above, the littlest ones, the big deliverances, the direction, the sustenance, the protection. We don't keep ourselves. It's a foolish pride person that thinks any day for any moment they've done something to keep themselves. I love the Lord because we should, we should rehearse. We should think. We ought to be more verbal about this. David always was. Now the love of God and the love of Christ we have is the great commandment in the Old Testament, right? It was the great commandment upon which hangs all the law and all the prophets. The great commandment and it's the greatest expression a Christian can make that he loves God. That's what Jeff was saying to the children around him. You ought to love God. We should love God. We were made to love God first and foremost. And a person who loves God truly, they know it and they feel it. And a person that does not honestly feel any love for God and that's not their life, they're not a Christian. Pure and simple. The love of God's not in their hearts. This great commandment and this great expression that a Christian can make, Deuteronomy, think about it. It's known as the book of law and indeed it is. Deuteronomy points to and leads to loving God, loving the Messiah and saying it. I just thought about these verses in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 6. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. How do you love him with your heart? You shall love him with all your mind and all your strength. Deuteronomy 10. And now, what does the Lord require of you? Reminds me of Micah 6a. What does the Lord require of you? But to fear him, to walk in his ways, and to love and serve him with all your heart. That's what he requires of every one of us. Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, speaking of regeneration. The Lord will circumcise your heart to love the Lord your God. A new heart in which is righteousness and purity. The love of God's there to love him. In Psalm 31, it says, O love the Lord, all you his saints loving. And it gets personal in Psalm 18:1 where David says, I will love you, O Lord, my strength. So the loving of God in Christ has always been the end of the law. And it's always been the new commandment that was going to come when Jesus told his disciples. Now, loving Christ actively not only means active obedience. If you love me, what? Keep my commandments. It not only means active obedience, but it also means giving your love to him. The heart actively goes after Christ and loves him. The mind actively sets its thoughts on him and loves him. The will goes out in love to him to make yourself his. Our tongues speak for love for him, to him, and to others. Pouring out your love upon him. Now, one of the best examples of this, I read it this week in Luke 7. You don't need to turn there, just remember. Luke 7 is a powerful chapter on the power and the love of Christ. The first event, an important military leader's son is dying and Jesus heals him long distance. He doesn't even go. He just healed him. In fact, the text doesn't even say that Jesus said anything. They just went and when they got back, they found out that he was healed and well. The unlimited power of Christ is there. The second big event, you know what it was? A funeral procession, a widow's only son, they're taking him to bury. Nobody comes to Jesus asking for help. He sees it, he has compassion, and he goes. What does he do? He stops the funeral procession, he tells the mother, don't cry, he touches the open coffin and he tells the dead man to rise. The funeral became a resurrection. The sorrow turned to shouting, and the ashes turned to joyful celebration, the power of Christ. But the third major event is a woman, a needy woman, a very sinful woman, a socially despised woman that was only used by this world, and she's weary and worn out, a real sinful woman. What did she do? She came to Jesus where he was. She knew about him. Had she heard him? Possibly. She knew about him, and she had something in her heart to warn him. So what did she do? She came to the Pharisee's house where there was a dinner party. Jesus was a guest of honor. She knew he was there, and she walked right in. Now think of her. Think of her desperation. Think of her risk that she's taking. Think of the potential embarrassment. Think of her fear of being rejected. Think of her courage, her humility, her heart desire. Think of her transparency. Transparency at not hiding. She comes to Jesus. She comes in, and what does she do? Verse 38. She stands at his feet, weeping. She's weeping enough that she gets down there, and she washes his feet with her tears. And then, she gets closer, and she dries his feet. Not with a towel, but with her hair. And she puts a fragrant expensive oil. What was she doing? She was pouring out her love on him. Do we do that? The love we feel, does it come out of us or from him? Do we hold it in? Do we bottle it in? Do we intellectualize it? Or do we pour it out in word? In action? In deed? In service? Pouring out her love for him. Love expressed is often risky. It's radical to express love like that. But it's healthy spiritually, because it should not stay bottled up inside us, but expressed and live. It's fragrant. It's a ministry. It's gospel-driven. It's evangelistic, even in its effects. If loving Christ is our supreme duty, because it's the supreme command, the one big issue then is, and Jeff got right to this also, to love God. But no one can love him, no one has love for him until they what? Know him. If you know him, you love him. And you know that you love him. And you express it in some ways. If you don't, enough. Get with him. Tell him. Tell others. But to love him, we have to know him. In Luke 7, the woman shows us that Jesus said, Her sins, which are more, many are forgiven. For to whom a little bit's forgiven, the same love's little. The opposite is, to whom much is forgiven, the same love's much. How much do you love Christ? And how much do you show it? With your words, and your testimony, your expressions, and your life laid open. Can people look at me? Can they look at you and say, that's a person that authentically loves God? And they speak about it. How did God first love us? The gospel. We know it. But let's just remember, children, if you know you should love God, adults, if you know you don't love him, how can we love him? For God so loved the world. He first loved us. And here's how he loved us, and what he did so we can come to love him and know him. In the fullness of time, what did God do? God, in the fullness of time, sent forth his Son, made from a woman in our humanity, made to live under God's law, as one of us, as we have to, to redeem us from our sins. And all is deserved punishment. That Luke 7 word, her sins were too many, are forgiven. Forgiven because he was going to cross. The forgiveness of sins, redemption through his blood. He died the just one for the ungodly, that he might bring us to God. That is mercy and grace and love experience. And when we know that mercy and experience that, what should come out of us from mercy and love experience? What should come out of us is mercy toward others and love express. So brethren, David is this marvelous example to us that we love the Lord because God didn't do any more for David than he's done for you if you're a Christian. He made him a king and that brought problems. Yeah, I'm not talking about that. God did nothing more for Moses or Elijah or Isaiah or David or Peter than he's done for you if you're a Christian. And that love shown and experience ought to be recognized and felt and expressed and told to him and to others. Shall we keep silent from the love of God to the whole? How can we? Polycarp. I was thinking about Polycarp yesterday. Polycarp, 2nd century, was the pastor bishop of the little flock, the little small church in Smyrna, which is mentioned in Revelation 2. Modern day Turkey. The name Polycarp means much fruit. That was his name and that was his life. He was a disciple of the apostle John and himself, he was a pastor and a shepherd of love like John was. He was condemned to die because he refused to burn incense to the Roman emperor as a god. So he was fastened to the stake when he was 86 years old to be burned alive. But history records that the flames wouldn't touch him. So finally a Roman soldier had to stab him to death. On the day that he died, Polycarp confessed this before his enemies. Eighty and six years have I served Christ and he's done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my savior and my king? You threaten me with a fire that burns for a moment but you are ignorant of the fires of everlasting punishment. He died at 86 and what Polycarp was remembered for, what he was known for in his life, what his legacy became was his love for the Lord Jesus Christ and how he expressed it. I thought about Peter, about struggling Peter. He blows it so bad in the triple denial when Jesus is on the way to the trial. He denies the Lord three times and he goes out and in tears he repents. But he's, then he's alone. He's not going to be with the Savior. The Lord is crucified and he's buried and he rises again and we don't know what dialogue really happened between them one on one but we do know this, in John 21, on that morning when Jesus prepares them breakfast on the shore, he says, come and have breakfast and they come and they join him. Afterward, Peter and Jesus have a conversation. Jesus starts it up. What did Jesus say to Peter? Peter, do you love me? Now think about this. That is the question for every drifting soul. That's the question for every soul that struggles to love the Lord more, who sees their weak in loving, who sees their weak in expressing it. That's the question that comes from Christ to all those who get off course, who chase some distraction, who backslide and are needy. The question from Christ that comes to us is, do you love me? I know you've blown it. I know you've denied me. I know you're struggling. I know you're needy. I know you're not walking as you should. Do you love me? And the answer for restoration is always, Lord, you know I love you. You know I love you. You know all things. You know I love you. That's the question, and that's the restoration. Do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know I love you. Isn't it amazing? Jesus didn't put Peter on probation. Now, I'm going to test you to see really how deep and sincere and full your repentance is. I'm going to watch you for three or four months and we'll see how well you do. I'm watching you. Don't mess up again. Jesus' approach to restoration was different. He goes to the heart and he knows us and he said, do you love me? What are we going to say? Are we going to say what Psalm 116 says? I love the Lord. I will love you. Brothers and sisters, be a zealous lover of Christ. Be a zealous lover. Don't be a half-hearted lover. Don't be a lukewarm lover. Don't be one who has love that rarely ever surfeit, comes out, that's rarely seen and heard, or that rarely risks or costs me anything. We love that way. We love when it's safe. We love when there's no real risk. We love when it doesn't cost us much. Convenient love or radical. This week, I have felt that my love for Him is often weaker at times than it used to be. That it cools off. That His love in what He's done for me doesn't motivate and constrain me and move me always. That it doesn't produce enough action and my heart is weak and fainting and I need that restoration. Loving Christ shows itself. It takes risk. It's active. It's seen. It's fragrant. It speaks. Are you silent and timid and unashamed of your Lord to this speaking? Actively loving Him is an act of our will and our emotions and our hearts and our minds. We are to love Him with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our strength, with all our will and pour out our love upon Him. I love the Lord because would anyone here today like to stand up and tell why you love the Lord? I love the Lord because the floor is open. Anybody have a testimony? Speak up. Make it breathe. Make it in the spirit. Amen. Thank you. I love the Lord because. Thank you. Amen. I love the Lord today because of when I was five years old, He connected us in kindergarten and away from today we will start 43 years of marriage. I love the Lord for that. Someone else? Very good. Thank you. We all have so many reasons and and proofs. The data is in. Run the data. It's a great exercise of the soul to get along. You ought to just begin to tell the Lord why you love Him. Lord, I love you because. Let's pray. Would you now within your heart pray what God has spoken to you? Our Father and our God, thank you for loving us and for sending your Son to be the Savior of the world. To be the propitiation for our sins. Thank you that we love you because you first loved us. Make us instruments of expressing your love to you and others. Work in us. The heart of David. To be a radical lover of Christ. In our walk, in our life, our obedience, in our heart, our soul, our mind, our strength, with our words and our actions. Thank you for the Bible. The entrance of your word gives life and understanding. Blessed be your name. Amen.