We have talked about Christ-centered preaching, first it's necessity, if we're being true to Christ-owned hermeneutic. And then last time began to talk about how does that Christ-centeredness get excavated from all the scriptures? And particularly that grace message in its various forms that's either preparing or predicting or reflecting or resulting from the work of Christ or for the work of Christ. All those components, and remember we talked about macro ways of looking at the text, kind of the Genesis revelation, where's this text fit in the big scheme? Or some micro-interpretation? Is there doctrinal statement in there that's reflective of the grace of God? Or are there relationships, either of God toward His people or them toward one another? Or are there relational reflections of God's grace that are ultimately going to be more fully represented in the work of Christ? And kind of the key thought that I'd hope you'd walk away with is the two lenses, the glasses you can put on to look at any text and begin to think in redemptive terms. And it's just two simple questions. What does this text tell me about God? Was this text tell me about me? And by having those two perspectives, you begin to think there's more here than just good behavior or even believing right doctrine. Somehow I have to be communicating how God is the hero of the text, how is God bridging the difference between who He is and who I am. If you approach the text that way, then there are dominant themes that begin to result in redemptive or Christ-centered messages. And our goal today is to diagnose those themes, but the larger one you see is to use redemptive principles in the application of Scripture in order to provide biblical motivation and enablement. Now, the reason for motivation and enablement is because of these dominant themes that begin to come out from a Christ-centered perspective. Obviously, central themes of a Christ-centered perspective are not solubut strapsa or the deadly bees, but rather messages that will be consistent will be grace despite our sin, messages of God's assurance and adoption. Typical topics would be things like our comfort in God's love. And I know the word Sabbath there may seem to be unusual because often the word Sabbath makes people feel uncomfortable in God's love. We don't keep the Sabbath, we don't do enough, God has requirements for the Sabbath, but biblical theology does something to your perspective of why the Bible is saying certain things even like Sabbath. We remember God created the earth in sixth day, the seventh day he rested. There was the first Sabbath, even for God. And while man existed in the garden, there was this resting that continued. Not only is God resting from his labors, but food is supplied. There is this stewarding of the garden, but it's not the same as the labor that will come after the fall, right? In which the thorns and fistles will come, and in which man will make his way in the world by the sweat of his brow, labor takes the place of rest. And man ultimately is put out of the place of rest. And we kind of see all the labor that continues until a time in which there is great bondage and labor in the land of Egypt. Here are the covenant people of God, they are laboring in slavery, but God says, I'll take you out of the house of bondage and promises them a new land. It's called Canaan, the promised land, but it's got another name too. It's called the land of Sabbath. They will go from labor to rest. They go back to Sabbath land. And even their God gives them commands. Six days you shall labor, but the seventh day is Sabbath, time of rest. And we even here see Jesus saying that the Sabbath was not, man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for men. He gets to enter rest in Sabbath land and on the Sabbath day, ceases from labor, from working his way through the world. He gets to rest in God. And then you have the book of Hebrews, of course, the writer telling us that there yet remains a Sabbath what? Rest for the people of God. That people are striving, working, trying to get God's approval, but God has nonetheless, by his son, provided a Sabbath. They can rest from their labor, rest from their striving, now not just in terms of making their way in the world, but making their way to God. They are resting in him. It's Sabbath again, so that we're told actually in Isaiah that when the new kingdom, the new creation comes, that we are finished with this veil of tears, this world of labor, and that when the new creation comes, we re-enter God's Sabbath. But that one way of kind of preaching the scriptures is to say, you're not resting enough on the Sabbath, so be a better Sabbath keeper, and of course the Bible does say that, but the emphasis in biblical theological perspective is enter the rest that God has for you. This sees from your rest like, that's done. You're not striving to make your way to God anymore, and he even shows it to you with this regular rest that you may enter that is emblematic of the spiritual rest that you're forever. No longer do you work for God's approval, he has provided your rest. That's a different way of looking at the theme of our comfort in God's love, right? If we're talking about grace despite our sin, we'll also be talking about our confidence of God's love. If my son disobeys me, I may be very displeased with him, but he's still my son. The relationship doesn't change. Confidence in our sonship is part of the message of God's grace despite our sin. A second dominant message that comes out of excavating the grace from all of scripture is grace destroying the guilt of sin, grace destroying the guilt of sin, messages of justification and forgiveness. Typical topics would be things like our repentance, obviously God's cleansing, and most particularly the work of Christ atonement, whether it's being prefigured or accomplished, or the result of Christ atonement, what are the implications of grace destroying the guilt of sin? You have to say for the reformation, that's probably the key thing, right, of the reformation doctrines that cause the movement of the church that we're a part of, the message of grace destroying the guilt of sin in justification. Grace defeating the power of sin, C, is probably more the issue of the moment. Issues of sanctification and enablement by grace also, that our power over sin for daily living is also by the grace of God. The reformation really underscored grace and justification, you had to wait till some of the Scottish revival movements and things like the marrow controversy where people begin to say, well, what is the role of grace and sanctification? And while reformers have almost always been very clear of the role of grace and justification, it's the role of grace and sanctification that sometimes troubles us. Typical topics over grace defeating the power of sin are issues of our victory over the world, the flesh and the devil. Speaking of God's provision of the Holy Spirit and His giving us His word to enable our victory, we have power, not been our strength, not by our ability, not even by our will, but ultimately our power is by the grace of God. And D, a final kind of overarching topic that would come, is grace compelling holiness, grace compelling holiness messages about worship and obedience, but that is stimulated by the grace of God. Typical topics would be things like Thanksgiving and praise and gratitude, a word we'll come back to later, but most specifically, loving service, service to God that is driven by love and grace being kind of the steam and the engine that is powering that love. It's this last topic, loving service that's often the tail tail sign, kind of the key mark of Christ-centered preaching. People worry that emphasizing grace undermines obedience, consistently preaching the necessity and the proper motivation, the necessity and the proper motivation for holiness may be the most difficult task evangelical preachers face. Because we culturally define grace as license rather than the biblical power of holiness. You recognize that, right? When most people say, oh, you can't tell me, I thought you believed in grace, you're not requiring me to do anything, are you? Actually, that's the world's definition of grace. The Bible's definition of grace is it's the power of obedience. Not the antidote to obedience, it's actually what is empowering obedience. And because we're so immersed in a culture that takes grace as license, it's why people so fear grace. If we have to ask ourselves seriously, how does the Bible itself motivate us to be holy? And kind of the sub-question, the sub-text is what's your own theology of change? What really causes people to change? Now, my question is very specific. What makes redeemed people? I'm not talking about unredeemed, unregenerate. I mean, I'm talking specifically about the covenant people of God. What makes redeemed people more holy? Threats of condemnation or promise of grace? It's not a new question. As a review of Romans 6.1, we'll assure you. Romans 6.1 is what should we continue in sin that grace? Oh, grace, great. You know, now I just continue in sin. Well, it never be. He is not interpreting grace to mean that you can just continue in sin. The question revolving around grace is really no different than that that revolves around the perseverance of the saints as a doctrine. What do people say? You can't just say that people will not lose their salvation. They'll just do whatever they want. I mean, perseverance of the saints is interpreted as, have grace, will, party, you know? And you're saying no, no, no, no. It's actually perseverance that's driving holiness when it's rightly understood. It's because I am held by God that I return to him always as a father, that I recognize even when I am departed from him, he's not departed from me. So that Paul will say it's the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. It's this knowledge of his faithfulness that ultimately brings us to faithfulness. It's very counterintuitive. It's counter human reflex to say that it's love that will generate obedience rather than threat. The question, despite the Bible saying and emphasizing the grace of God leads to obedience, is still debated in every generation of believers. In your readings, I think I quoted the famous John Bunyan account, the writer of Pilgrim's Progress. Remember, here he is, Bunyan is not going to establish, not going to follow the establishment rules of being ordained by the king. So he's going to preach because the church ordains him not because he's going to come under the authority of the king. So Bunyan gets thrown in prison. And of course he's not the only one thrown in prison. The Anabaptists, people of a very different theology than Bunyan, are also being thrown in prison because they won't come under the authority of the king. And so what do these people do? This reformed a Baptist preacher in the Anabaptist, here they are in prison facing death. So what do they do every evening? They debate theology. And the Anabaptists say to Bunyan, you should not keep assuring people of God's love. If you keep assuring people of God's love, they'll do whatever they want. And Bunyan's famous reply was no. If you keep assuring God's people of God's love, they'll do whatever he wants. Hear it? If it's redeemed. Long ago in this place we had a pastor come for a day of prayer and he reminded us of something I had not thought of. He said, you know, we're so scared of preaching to God's people what they ought to do because we think they will reject us. But what we forget is that God's people, not the rebellious, not the emergent, but God's people want to know what God wants of them. They actually want to know. So if we are instilling love in them for God, it's actually igniting in them a greater compulsion to obey Him. And that's page two. If you begin to say what really motivates people, it is the compelling power of love for God. Reason ask, why should people be holy if all you do is keep assuring them a grace? Scripture answers, as Jesus himself would in John 14, 15, if you love me, you will obey what I command. Why do you keep assuring people of God's grace? Because Jesus said if people love Him, they would do what he commands. That's why you assure them of grace. For Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, 14, it's the love of God that constrains us to preach the gospel. Why would we go against persecution and oppression and disadvantage because of the love of God? It's love for Him that's compelling us, do these things that seem humanly impossible and certainly humanly disadvantageous. But the love of God is compelling us to doing these most difficult and yet necessary things. Most people, and sadly I think most preachers, think the goal of preaching is to get people to do what they don't want to do. Yet preaching's highest aim and greatest power lies in convincing others of the love of God in Christ that makes the heart willing and able to do what God desires. That's the glory of preaching. Not to strong-armed people into doing what they don't want to do, but to actually have such love in them arise that they want to do and are able to do what God delights in. When we know that He delights in us, we desire to please Him. Conviction of sin is most necessary. But its aim is not simply to make people feel guilty, but to enable them to comprehend the greatness of God's grace. If my guilt is so great than the fact that I am forgiven makes my awareness of the grace of God all the more precious. It's why one of the old lines of preaching is it is necessary to convict of sin, but the sermon is not done until you have convinced of grace. If all I've done is convicted of sin, the sermon can't be done. That's not the gospel, not all of it. The sermon is not done until I have convinced of grace because it's the convincing of grace that actually makes me want to overcome the sin, to strive now against it. Conviction of sin is most necessary, but its aim is not simply to make people feel guilty, but to enable them to comprehend the greatness of God's grace. Grace liberates from sin's guilt and power by filling God's people with love for Him that makes them willing and able to please Him. I love how the confession says this, and I've given portions of the 20th and the 19th chapter in front of you there. The liberty which Christ has purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin. Now that's a very interesting statement. If you're a believer, you are free from the guilt of sin. Now you may feel guilty, but you're actually objectively free from the guilt of your sin. How much of your past sin has Christ taken away? How much of your present sin has Christ taken away? How much of your future sin has Christ taken away? The guilt of it all is taken away, so we are free from the condemnation and the guilt of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. I may feel guilty that subjective guilt, but objectively there is no more guilt because Christ has taken it all. What does that do? Are liberty purchased for believers under the gospel consist in their freedom from the guilt of sin, freedom from the condemning wrath of God, freedom from the curse of the moral law, and in their being delivered from the diminutive sin, that is they're free from the power of sin too. As also in their free access to God and their yielding obedience to Him, key words, not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and willing mind. Have you thought about that as a goal of preaching to convince people, to enable them to serve God not out of anything but a childlike love and a willing mind? That becomes the ultimate goal. The last paragraph says this too, neither are the aforementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel. So the law still is there, still in effect, in the sense of giving us standards, but the fact that we have the law is not contrary to the grace of the gospel. But sweetly complies with it, the spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully, which the will of God revealed in the law requires to be done. So the law is still requiring us not to steal. The law is still requiring not to take the name of the Lord in vain. The law is still requiring that we be faithful to our spouses, but that is not to say that the law justifies. It is God's path of delight for us and goodness for our lives. And our walking in that path occurs freely and cheerfully. We don't walk in the path because God says I won't love you if you get off the path. We're free from the condemning wrath. We're free from guilt. We're free from the power of sin. But we walk in the path because we delight to do so when we understand His grace in our behalf. So we need to ask again what better leads to true holiness, threats of punishment that is condemnation or promise of grace. That question, which will be more effective, often leads us to item B, understanding the relationship between our conduct and God's acceptance. Here's the questions. Are we holy for God's acceptance or are we holy from God's acceptance? The instincts of the average person are to say I'll be holy so God will accept me. Be holy for God's acceptance. But the gospel is be holy because God has accepted you. We'll get there in just a bit so let me answer and then we'll flesh it out later. Ultimately what we'll say is there are many motivations. Self-preservation is one of the biblical motivations. Self-preservation. But if you say the primary reason, and here's the key word, if the primary reason that you're obeying God is to take care of you, then your service is selfish and not holy at all. So God will give us understanding of your primary motivation has to be out of love for him. And the way that we preach such things is with an understanding. If God didn't love you, He wouldn't warn you. And the warnings itself are an expression of divine love for a people He desires to preserve. So it's not the sense of you better obey or the ogre in the sky is going to get you. It's actually your father in heaven has warned you of a safe path, stay in that path. So it's so much, I mean you're picking up on just the right thing, the rules aren't going to change. But the reasons for obedience are dramatically different if one is perceiving that what my goal is to motivate people by love primarily rather than simply self-protection. We'll get there more, but it's a great thing to pick up on. And let me tell you my own struggles and some number of you comment on this in your readings last time. So I'm sorry if this is redundant, but I mean just so much of my life has been unfolding from that period of about four to five years out of seminary. When I had the wonderful privilege of going to what would have been the oldest and largest church in my Presbyteria. And as kind of the youngest minister in the Presbyteria, that was kind of a moment for great personal pride and arrogance. But it didn't go very well. And it used to bother me so much. There was so much struggle in this historic church. I mean it was over 150 years old. It was the first Presbyterian church in the Indiana territory. Now it was in the state of Illinois, but it's before Illinois was even a state that was established. It was the first Presbyterian church in the Illinois territory. The first 150 years was pastored by only three people, three Scottish pastors, Wiley, Smiley, and Stewart. Sounds like a Scottish law firm, doesn't it? Wiley, Smiley, and Stewart. And they had long stays. But even though there was this kind of this long history of the faith, I will tell you we had so much adultery and addictive problems and depression. And week after week, I would just get so mad at those people, just so mad at them for not honoring the Word of God despite this tradition that they had. And then ultimately I must speak to you to tell you I began to feel that the problem was not so much them as it was me and preachers like me. I was so hurt by the situation. I must tell you it was only about five years out of seminar. I thought I would have to leave the ministry. I mean, I went into the ministry, desiring to help people. I mean, I wanted to do that. And yet every week I would stand up and just hammer on people, stop doing that, straighten up, you know, all of that. And I said to my wife at some point, all I do is hurt people. It's all I do. I just stand up here and hurt people every week. I can't keep doing this. I just can't keep doing this. I don't know. There were various things that began to kind of intersect into my life, to kind of help me understand what I was doing, what some of the dynamics were. One of them was that book that you're reading. I know you think it's so strange. It was Sidney Gradanas' solar scriptura. I was just looking for anything. It would tell me a different way to preach. And that article on how do you use the exemplars in the Bible? Is it just helping you to just dare to be a Daniel? And you just be as good as Dave and so forth. And not seeing that Gradanas helped me to see was actually those people were awful people. It's got grace that made them able. And God was using them to teach us of His grace, not just be a better person. But where I really heard it, where I really heard it was not in my preaching. I mean people would always kind of slap me on the back from my preaching, where I really heard it was in counseling situations. And I would say to people things, you know, a couple that might be caught in immorality and I'd say to them something like, listen, you should not expect God to love you if you're going to keep doing this. Now do you hear what I just said? God's love was dependent on their behavior. And it was in kind of the quietness of that counseling room that I actually began to hear what I was saying and thinking and acting like it was so contrary to my theology. I didn't believe that God's love was based on human action. And yet it's what I would preach if not explicitly by implication week after week after week. And I begin to say to myself, if there is the reason that people are so much struggling with addictive problems is they actually want to get away from the God I'm preaching. Is the reason that there's so much depression in this church is I don't give them any hope. I just keep making acceptance with God based upon their straightening up and they gave up on trying to be straight enough for God a long time ago. So depression and immorality and addiction, they're just escapes from the gospel that I'm preaching here week after week. And it was the desire to find something different that began to make me either think I've got to leave the ministry or I've got to preach a different gospel. And ultimately to use the Galatian terminology, I recognize that I was already preaching a different gospel than the one in the scriptures. I was preaching the gospel of do better not to preach that gospel is to understand the relationship between the imperative and the indicative. The classic statement from Ritterboss is this the imperative is items see in your notes the imperative rests on the indicative and the order is not reversible who we are in Christ that is the indicative who we are in Christ is the basis and power for what we do that is the imperative that pleases God. Now, Ritterboss's technical explanation I've got on the next page for you is what he says and Paul an outline of his theology. No less striking in this respect he's talking about how the relationship with God precedes obedience to him. No less striking in this respect is Colossians 3, 3 and following. Where in response to the statement for you have died and your life is hid in God now even hard for us in seminary to hear that language just think we said your dead. Your life your identity is dead and you are now hid in God there's another identity that you have because you are dead. After saying this that your identity is now wrapped in God the command it once resounds put to death therefore your members that are upon the earth fornication and cleanness etc. Having once died to Christ that is being in him having this new identity does not render superfluous putting to death the members that are upon the earth. So the fact that you're in Christ does not render superfluous the need for holiness but is precisely the great urgent reason for it. The imperative is thus founded on the indicative it is immediately clear that the imperative rests on the indicative and this order is not reversible. The standard human reflex is to say I will obey God and then I will get his love and the gospel is saying you have his love even when you were his enemy he died for you. Therefore serve him and if that captures you it will change absolutely everything in your life. I can remember and maybe you think it silly when some of these kind of grace perspectives begin to come into my life and my wife and how it even changed the way we would talk to our children. There was a time I would say to my son Colin you're a bad boy because you did that. Now do you hear the theology of that simple statement? You are what you did. The indicative rests on the imperative. You did or did not do something and therefore that determines what you are. You are a bad boy because you did that. What we began to say maybe it sounds silly to you is we would say Colin don't do that. You're my son. I want what you do to be based on who you are and that's not going to change. You're my son. Be what you are. Live out this relationship and to be able to say that as a preacher from the pulpit is one of life's greatest privileges to say to God's people. Be what you are. You are children of light. You are the children of God. You are in Christ Jesus. Be what he's already made you to be. Live out the reality of your life. This is what you are. Live it now. Rest on the indicative that he is established by living this out and that becomes part of the pattern of scripture once you see it, right? God and giving the ten commandments. What's the preamble say before he says don't take my name in vain. Don't make any other graven image before he says always I am the God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of a house of bondage. I did this for your free. Now live as a people of the covenant because of what you are. Live it out. He doesn't say because of what you are. There are no imperative anymore. But the imperative rests on the indicative and the order is not reversible. Even though all human reflex would say it is reversible. After the Ritterboss quote, it simply says this in Christ-centered preaching the rules do not change. But the reasons do as one preaches with a redemptive approach. Here's that concern for antinomitism being addressed directly, right? People will say if you talk too much grace, you kind of get rid of the rules. No, no, no, no, listen. The rules stay in effect. But the reasons for obeying them changes entirely. Instead of gaining God's love by obedience, we are obeying because we have God's love. The imperative rests on the indicative. It doesn't disappear. The imperative rests on what God has already done. Ritterboss, just to reiterate the confession, neither are the aforementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it. The spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully, which the will of God revealed in the law requires to be done. We still do it, but it's with this whole new motivation of cheer, of delight, of love for God. Our goal in excavating the grace in every passage is not to minimize biblical imperatives, but to empower their application with proper motivation and enablement. And that's why a little later in the semester, you're going to read portions of holiness by grace, which, you know, when you've preached a little bit this semester, I think you'll keep asking those motivation questions. How does this work? How do we deal with people's need to turn from hell-bent activity? How is holiness motivated by grace? And we'll kind of explore different components of that. But for now, let's at least begin to get a handle by talking about what become the proper motivations. If we've said in answering those questions of application, you know, what to do and where, if we're saying these things, don't change now. If this is actually what we're working on though, why? Why? Why? And we'll get to the how in a bit. How is motivation now working when we say we're excavating grace in order to compel love? We recognize first that there are proper motivations for Chrysler preaching and the first one has to be love for God. And I would, you know, there's a priority order when I'm about to say, right? The primary, the premier motivation for obedience must be love for God. So we're revealing grace in all the scriptures. And this is more than an interpretive scheme. It is the chief expository means by which the preacher may provide consistent adulation of the mercy of God in Christ. Consistent adulation of the mercy of God in Christ in order to prompt our love for God that is the most powerful motivation for Christian obedience. Biblical theology should be more should be more about fostering a relationship than promoting or arguing a science. Now, let me just stop there and tell you what I recognize to be some of the historical pitfalls and maybe some of you do too. If you were not kind of in Presbyterian North American circles, but you were more in Dutch reform circles, things that I'm talking to you are old news. I mean, they've been talked about for a century and a half. It's just old stuff, old news. Often kind of Presbyterian reformed evangelical settings at large. This is kind of new stuff and sometimes very suspect. But the consequence of saying that the Bible is not rightly exegeded until we have discerned the grace or the Christ focus of a text has led not so much to the emphasis upon loving God in reform circles, Dutch reform circles as into huge debates over what are the master metaphors of biblical theology. Is the right grouping mechanism kingdom is the right grouping mechanism creation fall redemption consummation is the correct metaphor of all things the covenant is the correct metaphor family is the correct metaphor you know Sabbath some have said. And I kind of want to back away from is it listen. Maybe those those are wonderful things to explore, but the main thing to be pushing at for the edification of believers to say we are talking about having people understand the relationship they have with God that he is established apart from their works. Now there may be different ways to understand that. But but sadly in so many of the Dutch reform circles biblical theology has been nothing but a a place of debate and lines of cleavage and division in the church. Rather than a uniting understanding of God's people for why we love him it's not a mystery to you that that some of this emphasis or crystal centrally kind of makes some people stand off a little bit and wonder if this is good or bad stuff and does it lead people astray and if I could push away from all the debates I would say listen. I'm happy if you understand at least what I'm trying to push at is that the goal of the preaching is to have people love their Savior more. And it seems to me that's kind of beyond debate that we ought to be able to say what I'm out and trying to accomplish by the end of the day is had people love Jesus more. Because I think out of that will come all the obedience and all the love for others and all the mercy toward the oppressed and all the concern that needs to be expressed toward my family and the right relationship if I'm just saying I'm here to love Jesus more and to show him more. And that's why I'm looking at the Bible as I am to try to create greater love for Christ that is relationally or it can't be non-rational I don't mean that but our understanding is driving a relationship more than a debate. If you would say that those people who are kind of standing outside and saying what are the concerns about not just Christ's preaching but kind of this grace movement that's in our circles these days, what are they concerned about? One is they say it's incipient Lutheranism. They would say that it's going to ultimately lead to some discounting of the law because we'll get this law gospel split going on. Well, you've heard me very much try to say today the law is in effect, right? I mean you all are smiling because you know why I did that. I'm well aware that there's that concern. I'm well aware that almost any of this discussion can become a new legalism and it's why I was just talking about the debate. If you don't talk about grace the way I talk about grace then you don't, you know, so we get the sonship controversy is going on and we get desiring God controversy is going on and we get Christ's preaching controversy is going on. I kind of want to say all right I know those are good legitimate discussions but if all we're doing is we're kind of having this academic debate then we're not doing the gospel work we ought to be doing which is ultimately my drive me to understand whatever language you get comfortable with. Loving Christ more is what the preaching is going to be about. Now I didn't answer your question directly but I'm trying to kind of use it like as a foil so people see some of the even the logic of what I'm talking about here and why we're taking the course we are even through this lecture. Did I answer enough? Sure. I mean anything can be warped anything can be and that's why I'm trying not to argue for a particular language I'm trying not to argue for particular code words. I'm trying to obviously make an explanation of how it functions and then say I'm not even trying to create the one master metaphor that's got to work for everybody. I'm more saying if in your heart of hearts you kind of see God's people out there wanting to wanting to love him and know him and obey him and struggling to do it. What will most help them? It's in whatever way is appropriate for your personality that certain situation and those people to instill greater love for Christ. And that's kind of what I'm after. Can did I answer your question? Yeah. I mean and how does that occur? I mean ultimately we'd say we love God because he first loved us. So when you're talking about creating this compelling love for God it's not a new command. He said a new command I give you that you should love one another. But it's not now a new imperative you must know that parent has always been in place but even that imperative rest on the indicative of his love for us. So you must now love Jesus, well of course you must love Jesus but what we're recognizing we can't if we don't know he loves us. It becomes absolutely impossible to love God if you think he's the ogre in the sky. You can obey him if you think he's the ogre in the sky. But you cannot obey the first commandment that you should love God with all your heart, soul and mind if you think he's the ogre in the sky. So to create a right understanding of those indicatives is ultimately creating even the possibility of obeying God by loving him. We were dealing with this love for God as primary motivation and various verses. Romans 12-1 obviously I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices. Do you see imperative and indicative there? The imperative, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. I must tell you that most of my early Christian life I read that very differently than it is on the page here. What I read it to say was I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices and then you'll be holy and pleasing to God. Have some of you read it that way? You'll be a good living sacrifice and then you'll be holy and pleasing to God. What does it actually say? This is not a statement of what you will be. It's a declaration of what you are. Not like dead sacrifices of animals in the back. You are already holy and pleasing to God in view of his mercy. That is what he has already made you to be. Therefore, live it out as this living sacrifice your life now appraised to him. Live out this life that he has already made holy and pleasing to himself. Consistent focus on Christ's mercy rather than building up a dread of God is what most powerfully motivates and enables Christians in their fight against sin and desire to glorify God. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, it teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions. It's an amazing statement. It's the grace of God that is teaching us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions. It's that grace that's compelling or even the Old Testament message. It's the joy of the Lord that is our strength. Here again, it's just this primary motivation of love for God. Now, there are other motivations. Item B on page 4 is love for others, love to buy God. Why do I love the unlovely? Why do I love people who are mad at me? Why do I love people who are criticizing me, hurting me, hurting my family? Well, if I believe that they are made in the image of God and some of them actually believe they are doing God's work by attacking me, I'm going to love those that God loves if He is my first love because He loves them. I may not have any earthly reason, any human reason, but because of His love for them, I love them. I've said it to you, I think some of you on other occasions, but I don't think it was until I discovered kind of this grace-focused preaching that I actually began to think I really loved lost people. I think I was felt obligated to witness to them, even though I didn't like them, but I think it was finally when I began to say, God has worked in me a grace that's beyond any of my doing so that when I'm looking to people who are filthy and language inhabit and thought and practice, and say, you are like me, apart from the grace of God. And if God loves you enough to put me in your life to hear the gospel, then I think I can love you because I love Him because He loves you. And for the first time, not make things like witnessing, I've got to get another notch on my belt here to prove to God that I'm being faithful, but actually to long to witness to people because I love them for the first time. And I must say it's the only time I begin to feel like I was effective at all in witnessing to people when I actually begin to love them because God did. You know, the verses, I tell you the truth, Jesus said, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. How is He motivating the disciples? Well, do it for me. And it's long to do it for the least of it. You're really doing it for me. So he's motivating them for love for others by love for himself. The final reason of obedience or for obedience is love for self. As one loved by God, love for self. It's an interesting thing to be a child of the king. If he loves me, I guess it's okay if I love me. Do you know believers who actually think that self hatred is a form of showing their faithfulness? That the way in which I show that I'm really, really serious about God is I hate myself and I feel bad about every sin longer than anybody else. And so they make self-loathing the basis of their status before God. Now the trouble with that is it makes the blood of Christ of no effect. It's my self-loathing rather than his blood that makes me acceptable to God. And so the way in which I really, really, really show that I'm a great Christian is I feel real bad about myself for long periods of time. And I think that makes me holy. Here's the problems. Here's what we should be doing. Number one, claiming the rights and privileges of our inheritance in Christ. I am a child of the king. In fact, I am his own inheritance. John Murray writes it this way. He says, grace is bestowed. And the relationship, the relation established by sovereign divine administration. All right, God establishes our relationship with him. How then are we to construe the conditions of which we have spoken? This was the earlier question, right? They are simply the reciprocal response of faith, love and obedience. Why does God say? Because you are mine, walk in my ways. These conditions of experience and blessing are the reciprocal responses of faith, love and obedience, apart from which the enjoyment of the covenant blessing and the covenant relation is inconceivable. If I'm not faithful to my spouse, it is inconceivable that I could enjoy the faithfulness of God. So God warns me about unfaithfulness because He wants me to have the enjoyment of the faithfulness that He delights in. So does God ever motivate us with good things in our lives? If I am faithful to my spouse, is there blessing to me? Sure. And God can motivate me by saying that you will delight in your wife and there will be wonder in that and goodness. And so it's because I want to care for me that I want to be faithful to my spouse. There's a right self-motivation. Now there can be a wrong self-motivation when it gets out of priority. If I bring home some flowers to my wife and meet her at the door and say, hey, I brought you some flowers. And she says, that's wonderful. Why would you do that? Because it's so good for me. What's she going to do with those flowers? Or come right back at you, Bob. Now there's blessing to me, but the primary intent is to bless her. And so it's not wrong to say, yes, my self-good can be in the frame when I hear the warnings in Scripture, when I hear the conditions on blessing, but still the primary reason for preaching and motivating people has to be love for God. Even if I am concerned about me as well, and the Bible certainly motivates me with concern for me at times. But with the understanding of what God provides, and part of that motivation is number two, God motivates us with avoidance of the consequences of sin. Revealed by a loving God. God does motivate us with avoidance of the consequences of sin, but the last part is also important. Revealed by a loving God. If God did not love us, he would not warn us of sin's consequences. I mean, that's one of the awful portions of Romans one, right? Where the apostle looks at those who are caught in sin and says, God simply left them to go their way. He sent them, let them have their way. But for his own people, he warns them of the consequences of sin. It's part of his love in expression. And that's why we see some of these standards in the Scriptures and begin to understand them as part of God's love, saving discipline, which is expressed toward us regularly. I mean, God disciplines his people versus retributive punishment, which was afflicted on Christ once for all, it should say once for all, is necessary distinction. Does God discipline his people? Yes. There's a harder question. Does God punish his people? The answer is no. Now you have to kind of go to the origins of words here. The punish someone is to inflict penalty on them. To discipline them is to seek to restore a relationship, to do what is best for them. So the penalty for my sin has been put on Christ. Now even the apostle or the writer of Hebrews will tell us that no discipline seems pleasant for the moment. So God will warn us with discipline. But we are reminded that he only disciplines those he loves. He only disciplines which means when I am the throes of the worst discipline God can bring into my life, I am loved no less. Now that's God to affect the way you preach. If all we're doing is warning people the disciplines of God to turn them from wrong behavior, that doesn't accomplish God's purposes if we don't say as the writer of Hebrews would. But the discipline is out of love. His intention is only to help you. Remember the old preacher's story about the woman who took her son to the doctor because he was sick and the doctor determined he'd have to give the kid a shot and the mom said to comfort her child. Now don't worry Johnny, it won't hurt. Well the doctor knew it was going to hurt. And so he said to him, son, I may hurt you but I will not harm you. You're the difference between discipline and punishment. I may hurt you, but my goal is the fruit of righteousness. The blessings to come that I mean to bring into your life. No discipline for the moment seems pleasant, but when it has matured, it will bring about the fruit of righteousness, which is God's true intent. I may experience discipline as a result of our sin, but fatherly discipline even when harsh is still an expression of love for a child's welfare and discipline preached without fatherly love as motivation will not accomplish God's purposes. Thus the conclusion there you see there are many motivations for obedience, fear of consequences, desire for blessing, certain love for self, concern for others and love for God. But since love of God must be the primary motivation and holiness, stimulating such love must be the primary and most consistent concern of our preaching in order for our people to have holy power for their obedience. The message of grace is meant to stimulate love for God and its compelling power. It's this biblical theology that sees redemptive truth throughout all the scriptures. It's biblical theology enables us to see and expound this grace in all scripture and thus rightly apply the whole counsel of God to our lives. If you begin to see that and sense that, it's this compelling love for God what I'm trying to do, then you at least have to counter it and say what would be wrong motivations. I remember class some years ago when I was saying people try not to motivate people by the guilt of God, try not to make guilt your primary motivation. The student held up his hand and he said, what else is there? And I think a lot of preachers think that if not, what else is there to motivate people other than guilt? What else is the other motivation? It is love. It may sound kind of schmaltcy and swarmy to say, but there is no more powerful motivation than love. What drives the mother back into the burning building? It is love. There is no more powerful motivation than humanity than love. And love for God is the most powerful motivation for holding this. That means there can be improper motivations that are contrary to the whole counsel of God. A is making self-promotion or self-protection the primary aims of obedience. If you were to go through the pews of most of our churches and you would say what are many people's primary motivations, they fall into one of two categories. They are people who are obeying God so they can get more good stuff or they are obeying God so the ogre in the sky won't get them. Now listen, if you are serving God so the ogre in the sky won't get you, who are you really serving? Yourself. If you are obeying God so that you will get more good stuff, bigger house, prettier wife, more money, if your primary reason for serving God is so you will get more good stuff, who are you really serving? It is just self again. They are both just sanctified selfishness and neither is worthy of those whose chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. For those reasons there have to be other ends that are driving us. On the sheet at the back that I gave you the other day, J.I. Packer, he writes it this way. The secular world never understands Christian motivation. Faced with the question of what makes Christians tick, unbelievers maintain that Christianity is practiced only out of self-serving purposes. They see Christians as fearing the consequences of not being Christians that is religion as fire insurance or feeling the need of help and support to achieve their goals that is religion as a crutch or wishing to sustain a social identity religion as a badge of respectability. No doubt all of these motivations can be found among the membership of our churches. It would be futile to dispute that. But just as a horse brought into a house as not there made a human, so a self-seeking motivation brought into the church is not thereby made Christian. Nor will holiness ever be the right name for religions for religious routines thus motivated. From the plan of salvation I learn that the true driving force for authentic Christian living is and ever must be not the hope of gain, but the heart of gratitude. If you will substitute Thanksgiving or even love of God, I'm happy because the word gratitude is a little debatable these days for reasons I'm about to discuss. But what is he saying? The world thinks you're selfishly motivated. Sadly many Christians are. But what should be motivating them is a response to the grace of God. I usually think of this as one of the most honest of all questions that you'll find in a catechism anywhere. The question is this, since we are redeemed from our sin and its wretched consequences by grace through Christ without any merit of our own, why must we do good works? Is that a great question? If it's all grace, why be good? What does it say? So that with our whole life we may show ourselves grateful to God for his goodness and that he may be glorified through us. If it's all grace, why be good? Because I want to show my love for God. Now tell me why the word gratitude is debatable in our circles right now Logan. Future grace, page 42. How does he define, how does Piper define gratitude? But I remember a debtor, a debtor response to God. Now let's just say some things. If you define gratitude as a debtor response and of course he's responding to a lot of his own upbringing background where somebody say, you should go to the mission field. Jesus did so much for you. Shouldn't you repay him by going to the mission field? And so Christian obedience and motivation is being driven by this and so paying God back. And let's all agree if that's the kind of gratitude we're talking about, it is definitely wrong if that's what we're talking about. The difficulty is not only among the reformers but in the Bible, that's not how the word gratitude is used. The word gratitude is used as the substitute for thankfulness. So you'll get Colossians 3-16 telling us that we should sing to God with gratitude in our hearts. And it's just the word chorus, by the way. It's just the grace terminology. So with a grace response filled with grace, filled with an understanding that all that you have is not of you at all. Now if what you're doing is you're saying, no, no, no, I've got to pay God back with what I have. Believe me, you'll never pay it back. And what I've tried to do is actually substitute, if you see, for some of the cause of the controversy of that word right now, just talk about love for God instead. Because it kind of throws people, and you see the graph, but it's the language of the reformers consistently that it should be in thanksgiving that we are responding. And almost nobody debates that we should be showing thanksgiving to God. But it's not payback. It's just the response of a loving heart. Does that help at all? I mean, you all are aware of that controversy I'm guessing. And I feel it kind of moving away as kind of future grace gets to be older. And if people really begin to get into the book and say, how is he defining it? And is that the way the reformers are using the term? And if you're troubled by gratitude, please just substitute love for God. Yes. God is most glorified when our greatest delight is in him. And we'd have to say that, you know, it's really the same message from a different angle. I mean, that's not a different message. Because what you're saying is, why would I delight in him? Because of what he has provided me. I love him because he first loved me. And therefore, he's most glorified when I take my greatest delight in pleasing him. So it's my self delight to please one that I love. But the reason I love him is because he first loved me. So that, I mean, we would say that love for God is the gratitude doesn't have to be something that is self-serving, debtor response. I get the monkey out my back by paying God back. Rather, it is, again, the biblical terminology, being filled with grace, being very thankful in my heart for all that came to me by no doing of mine and no payback from me. Second, not only making a wrong motivation, a self-promotion or self-protection being primary, but also using slavish, that is selfish fear to use the reformer's language, the confessional language, slavish fear, rather than godly fear as motivation. Wrong motivation would be making personal protection from the ogre and the sky, kind of the motivation of our preaching. But we must say there is a proper fear of God, isn't there? Doesn't the Bible talk about fear of God? Sure it does. Our trouble is we don't have an easy English word that kind of fits into fear of God. And I wish I did, but what I, listen, if God were somehow to appear in our midst, we would all fall to the ground. There would be a right fear of God, but that fear of God is regard for Him in all of His nature, not just a disciplining side. It is proper regard for His love, it is proper regard for His fathering, it is proper regard for His sovereignty, it is proper regard for the awesomeness of who He is. And if you kind of want to just get in your brain, what is proper fear motivation? Then I'm helped by Isaiah 11, too, which tells us that when Christ comes He will walk in the fear of the Lord. So in whatever way you think Christ properly regards His father is the proper biblical fear. And it's not that sense of, oh no, the overer is going to get, I mean that's not how Jesus would perceive His father. It's that proper regard for all that God is. And that's what ultimately is making fear, biblical fear, even an aspect of responding to the love for God, and that the love that He has for us. Page 5, and I need to move quickly here, a wrong motivation is failing to distinguish between objective guilt and subjective guilt as motivation. Subjective guilt we've already talked about is what we feel in grieving the Holy Spirit, what we rightly call conviction for sin, but that is very different than objective guilt. That is the penalty for past, present and future sin placed on Christ and fully reconciled on the cross. Yes, we can convict people of sin, but we do not condemn them if they are God's people. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And so making people aware that they have grieved the Spirit should lead them to seeking repentance and knowing God's grace. Read it in the sense that there is God now condemning them. Proper enablement, if we've talked about motivation as we have so much of the hour, we need to say we didn't get to the fourth question of application. What to do, why, primarily out of love for God, but how do people do what they're supposed to do? In order to provide proper enablement, we have to answer all four questions of application. Not only what and where, but also why and how. Now the reason we've sent so much time on the why is because of this next line here. The why is the how. We answer the why question, why should we serve God because when people truly grasp the love of God, they have his strength. The reason that sin has power over us is that we love it. If sin has no attraction to us, then it has no power over us, do you believe that? If sin didn't attract you at all, it would have no power over you. How we undermine the power of sin is by filling the heart with love for Christ, revealing the grace that is why we love him. The way, John Owen wrote, the way that you remove the power of anything is by taking away its life source. The life source of sin is our love for it. Take that away and sin has no power. How do you take away love for sin? You fill up with love for Christ. The why becomes the how. As people are filled up with love with, they see why they should be serving him and they understand it is his love that's been exegeded from the text. Then ultimately it is that love for him that is granting them power. That means when we are motivating people, we want to make sure people know how to plug into Christ's grace. That is, they offer confession by the way, that's so that they will experience his grace not so they will gain it. How many people think that if I don't repent of my sin, I don't have grace. What's the trouble with that kind of thinking? How many of you have repented enough for your sin? Good, no hands. Because if you think that my repentance is what gains God's grace, then you will live guilty all your life. You must know that you already exist in the state of grace. You already exist before the smile of God. And while you may not experience that grace as rebellion takes you from it, it is not your confession that gains his grace. It's what allows you to experience it afresh. Grace is also helping people to claim their sonship to know what it means to be in Christ and knowing God's provision for them. But the power, let's go to that line particularly, where does the power come from? They should be told to pray for the Holy Spirit. Yeah, that's part of it. But it's also beginning to understand what it means to walk in faith. When the Puritans talked about, I need about three more minutes, guys. When the Puritans talked about what would give people power for the Christian life. They talked about the walk of faith. And for many of us, we think the walk of faith is somehow, you know, like, doing exercise. We're going to pump up a lot of faith so we can really walk in faith and they meant exactly the opposite. They said the walk of faith was coming to the scriptures as a little child and simply believing what it said. That what would actually give people power is to look at the word and simply believe like a child that it was true. And that what it says is, greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. That many Christians think I can't overcome sin is just the way I'm made. God made me this way. It's probably his fault. Instead of simply believing what the Bible says, you are overcomers. Greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. If you don't believe that you have power over sin, you've already been defeated. But to be a child, he says it so I believe it. I didn't feel that way. I don't think I have power. I've had to throw this all. But he says I have power. So I'm simply going to believe it. And that means we believe that we are a new creation in Christ Jesus. That there was a time that we were not able not to sin. Remember that? No one post a nonbacare? But now I am able because the resurrection power of Jesus Christ is in me. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is in me. And because of that, I have power not like the world. And I'm just going to believe that. As an act of faith, I'm simply going to believe that what the Bible says is true. And in believing it, there is power. And that power gets exerted when we then begin to nurture the new affections. Thomas Chalmers wrote it long ago, the expulsive power of a new affection. Following the path of John Owen saying as we are filled up with love for Christ is expelling love for the world. To be that tank for God's love that's being filled up is going to drive out the oxygen of sin. So we begin to recognize whole new ways of approaching the Christian life. For instance, the love building versus the points earning use of Christian disciplines. You know, we know that so many times we are going to say to people you need to read your Bible more. You need to pray. You need to dissociate. But why do most people even in the church think they are doing that?