For our Scripture reading tonight, we turn to John chapter 8. We will begin reading with verse 31. Read to the end of the chapter. Important to understand the words of Jesus and His approach would be to understand that Jesus is speaking to a mixed multitude of Jews. Not only are there the unbelieving and unrepentant Jews, but also even as we read in the context, there were many who believed on Him, and especially the initial words that we read are directed at them. But Jesus will also expand His address to the multitude. John 8.31, Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, "'If ye continue in my word, "'then are ye my disciples indeed, "'and ye shall know the truth, "'and the truth shall make you free.' "'They answered him, "'We be Abraham's seed, "'and were never in bondage to any man. "'How sayest thou, ye shall be made free?' Jesus answered them, verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin, and the servant abideth not in the house forever, but the son abideth forever. If the son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. I know that ye are Abraham's seed, but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with my father, and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.' They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, if ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God. This did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, we be not born of fornication. We have one father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God. Neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, you believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin, And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words. Ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. Then answered the Jews and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a devil, but I honor my Father, And ye do dishonor me, and I seek not mine own glory. There is one that seeketh and judgeth. Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets. And thou sayest, if a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death? Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? And the prophets are dead, whom thou makest thyself. Jesus answered, if I honor myself, my honor is nothing. It is my Father that honoreth me, of whom ye say that he is your God. Yet ye have not known him, but I know him. And if I should say I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you. But I know him, and keep his saying. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it. and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet 50 years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. The word of God that we consider are the words of Jesus in verse 42. Jesus said unto them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God. Neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Beloved in our Lord Jesus Christ, the title of the sermon is the question, Who is your Father? The text that we consider under that question is not directly asked in the text itself. It does not contain that question, but it is clearly implied. When the Lord questions the claim of the Pharisees, He's questioning their claim that God is their Father, and says that if they would love Him, Jesus, which they clearly did not, He is clearly implying the question, who is your Father? That's behind and underlying the words of Jesus here. This question, who is your father, is not a question that really originates in Jesus, but rather in the Pharisees. When way back in a section we did not read, verse 19, They initiated this whole discussion by asking Jesus, where is your Father? When they asked Jesus, where is your Father, that too is really the question, who is your Father? Behind that is that question. When Jesus answers them, Jesus' answer is not only about where His Father is, but when Jesus answers that question, where is your Father? He tells them who His Father is. He speaks about who He is. He even says, you neither know Me nor My Father. That is, know who He is. That's what we read in verse 19. Besides that, this statement of Jesus that we consider under that question is initiated by Jesus' claim then that His relationship to God is one of Father and Son. I am not alone in judging, but I and the Father that sent me judge again. Jesus' statement there is not so much about what and where, but who is His Father. This was an important, indeed, critical question from the perspective of both the Pharisees and Jesus, because it is that question that determines who He is. It establishes His own credentials. Establish who His Father is and you know who the Son is. This is one reason why Jesus frequently, and especially as recorded in the book of John, speaks over and over again about His Father. And why the Pharisees again and again question whether or not God is his father, and challenge him in that regard. But this is also a question that is important for us tonight, really, for the same reason. That question, who is your father, is that which determines who and what you are. The answer of it If God is your Father, then just as if Jesus has God as his Father, he is the Son, so then if God is our Father, then we are Christians. We also are children of God and brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ. Consider with me this morning this word of Jesus under that question, who is your father? And in the first place, we look closely at that question itself. Then secondly, on the answer. And then finally, the explanation for that question and its answer. The question, who is your father, is a very, very important question. It's not a question that we often ask. Even when we are talking about spiritual matters, when we speak to one another and we want to know who someone is spiritually, that's often not the question we ask. We might ask what they believe and what they stand for. We might ask questions about their life. And perhaps we're getting at the question, who is your Father, but ask that question directly. That question was important both to the Pharisees and their inquiries with regard to Jesus, as well as important for Jesus Himself, and so also for us. Now why is that? Knowing who someone's father is tells you much about the person who is the son or daughter of that father. That's true even from a natural point of view. If you know about the father's nationality and about the father's ethnicity, or a father's social status or his economic background. If you know about a father's upbringing and about his family life, if you know what someone's father looks like or his gifts and abilities, often you know very much a lot about the son. There are exceptions, of course. We all know there are exceptions in appearance, there are exceptions in gifts and abilities. Why? Because we have not only earthly fathers, but earthly mothers from which we inherit and receive much. from both nature and nurture. Besides that, we know that God gives to each person a unique gifts. Even personality gives his own gifts in unique measures. And then there is a reality that especially in our world, where we have a certain economic and social freedoms and political freedoms, that when we grow up, we find our own way and we do not necessarily follow the social, economic, educational path of our parents, even our father. Nevertheless, as a rule, this holds true. It's even true from a spiritual point of view, too. Often the son will have the same religious views as his father, whether that father serve an idol or serve the one true God. If the father worships Buddha, chances are the son worships Buddha. If the father attends a Reformed church, then likely the son will attend a Reformed church. These are a reflection of a number of things, especially two. The first is our God is a covenant God who saves not only believing fathers, but also often that father's physical children. so that with regard to the true faith, the Father often resembles, or the Son resembles the Father in that regard. But even outside of that, our God is a wise, orderly God who created families. And He makes fathers responsible for that family. He places tremendous power and responsibility upon a father to direct a son. that may be in the way of his own unbelief or even belief, either obedience or disobedience. It's simply the way that God made things. It's even true as regards many spiritual abilities and gifts and strengths and as well as weaknesses. The spiritual gifts that are found in a father, such as patience or mercy or leadership, are often found in his son. The question, who is your father, is also an important question. because it tells you as much about the Father as it does the Son. It works in reverse. Again, that's true most of the time, even from a natural, earthly point of view. Know someone's son, and even though you may never have met their father, you will still know a great deal about the father, about the way he raises his family, about what he taught his son or his daughter, too. You may know quite a bit about the social, religious views of that father simply from knowing the son. That's why, in many cases, we as parents can be proud of our sons or even embarrassed by them, whether that's right or wrong, with or without cause. If our son makes something of himself, we know that whether or not we had anything to do with it, it still reflects somehow on us. And if he makes himself a name in a bad or evil way, that too reflects on us in a certain way, even though we may have done all in our power to prevent it. There's an inseparable connection even from a natural viewpoint between Father and Son as well as from a spiritual viewpoint. And this is what makes that question, who is your Father, the very heart of Jesus' controversy with the Pharisees. The controversy is often couched in terms of, are you the Christ or not? But even that has to do with the question, who is your Father? Now the Pharisees themselves made this the heart of the issue because of Jesus' own claims. Claims that He Himself made about His Father. It would be do well to highlight perhaps some of those. And I'll stick to just simply those that we find in this particular passage. Take note of how often Jesus speaks about His Father. It says in verse 16 that He acted not alone. He wasn't acting on his own or doing his own thing, but he was doing the will of his Father, that he was acting along with his Father. God was acting in and through him. It says in verse 18 that the Father bore witness of him. Then in verse 23 that his Father was from above, and therefore that was his origin. It says in verses 26 and 28, that his father taught him and his father spoke to him. Notice how similar these are to how perhaps a son, even an earthly son, might speak about his own earthly father. He says in verse 29 that he did those things that pleased his father. Then in verse 36, he talks about the fact that he had the power to make free those that were servants in his father's house. He says furthermore in verse 42 that he proceeded and was set by the Father. That's our text. Notice how he brings that up. I proceeded from my father. I was set by my father. And then in verse 43, he goes on to talk about the fact that he honored his father and his father honored him. And in verse 58, the well-known verse where he says that he lived with his father even before Abraham was. The controversy is that the Pharisees disputed those claims because it was clear to them, very clear, that Jesus was not talking about any earthly father. They knew He was not talking about Joseph. Rather, that Jesus was claiming to be the Son of God, the Father. And therefore, His claim through that was that He was the Messiah or Christ of God. That He was set to do the will of the Father as the Christ and fulfill the will of the Father as the Christ. That as the Son, He had taken on the responsibilities of everything that God had revealed with regard to His own children. And those children, they knew to be the children of Israel, or that is, the church. And they disputed this. They disagreed with it. They did not believe it. Jesus, on the other hand, makes this an issue himself, because the Pharisees also believed that they were sons. They claimed, on the one hand, to be the sons of Abraham, and they extended their claim, furthermore, to be therefore sons of God. They too claimed that God was their Father. Now, Jesus acknowledges their claim that they were Abraham's seed, that they were, in a very real sense, the children of Abraham. But you will notice, very carefully, that Jesus rejects that claim. Jesus will not even allow them to make that claim that Abraham is their father. I know that ye are Abraham's seed. I acknowledge, in a certain sense, that ye are Abraham's seed. But then he goes on to say, ye seek to kill me, verse 37. And then says this, if ye were Abraham's children, if you were truly the seed of Abraham, if Abraham was really your father, then you would do the works of Abraham. Abraham, he says, was known for this, that he rejoiced to see my day. He rejoiced to see the day of Christ. He saw it. and rejoiced in it. Now, of course, Abraham did that by faith. Abraham, indeed, would die, but he had faith. And by faith, he looked from a long, long way before Christ would actually come. And he saw that day, saw it as if it had happened, and rejoiced in it. And he says, by implication therefore, that because they do not rejoice in that day, because they did not see that day and do not see that day, that therefore they cannot be children of Abraham. Otherwise they would believe as Abraham did. But notice also that Jesus denies their claim that God is their Father in spite of their confession. In spite of their confession that God is their Father, Jesus rejects it. And he does so on the basis of their behavior. Their behavior was that they hated Christ and sought to kill. kill Him who was the Son of the Father, who proceeded and came forth from the Father, who was doing only the will of the Father. The fact is, Jesus says, you cannot be the children of God, because if you did, then you would love His Son. So Jesus denies that claim. Now Jesus denies that claim, not only, but Jesus establishes who their real spiritual father actually is. Again, based upon how they behave. You see, there were only two possibilities in the eyes of the Pharisees as to their origin. As regards their physical origin, from a physical viewpoint, they claimed that they were children of Abraham. And from a spiritual viewpoint, they claimed that they were children of God. And they also assumed that one followed the other, that if you were a child of Abraham, then certainly you would be a child of God. That they were children of God, in other words, exactly because they were children of Abraham. That is, their spiritual ancestry was due and related to their physical ancestry. And Jesus divorces them of all such no-sins and offers a third possibility that they hadn't considered, that they were actually children of the devil. Jesus bases that bold claim on the fact that they refused to believe Jesus' own claims about His Sonship. And not only refused that, but lied about it. Jesus accuses them of lying. Jesus is saying, you know who I am. You know who my Father is. You know all these things, but you're lying about them. And you want to kill me. Well, lying and murder are the works of the devil. By your lying and murder, you show yourself not to be children of God, but that you are children of the devil. It's important for us to take note that this is an important issue with regard to us also, because Jesus is teaching here. the truth about everyone from a natural point of view. And by natural, I do not mean physical point of view, but from a natural spiritual point of view. Jesus is teaching it matters really nothing who one's physical father is. Physical father could be Joseph, could be Abraham, could be our earthly fathers. But if we find that we are those who lie about the truth of God and about His Son, Jesus Christ, and we have hatred and murder in our heart against the Son of God, than we are really sons of Satan. And that's the natural place, that's the natural origin of every single human being, not just the Pharisees here. He's teaching us about ourselves all from a natural spiritual point of view. But he's also teaching the opposite. That if we love Jesus Christ as the Son of God, then regardless of who is our natural physical Father, as well as regardless of who is our natural spiritual Father, whether that be the one that we call Father on this earth, or the one who is the devil, then if we love the Son of God, Jesus Christ, that we can do that, and may only do that, because indeed God is our Father. Because that's the truth. And the devil doesn't believe the truth. That's what this text is all about. Now when Jesus lays out that question, which of course comes in the form of a statement. If God were your father, Jesus is really asking the question, who is your father? Jesus tells us what the answer of that question is. The answer to the question, who is your father, is answered by answering another question, also clearly implied from the text. And their question is, do you love Jesus Christ? The answer to the question, who is your father, is answered by asking this question and answering it, do you love Jesus Christ? That is the plain teaching of Jesus when he says, if God were your father, ye would love me. a statement of fact, a statement of truth. That's the question that really confronts each of us tonight. This is really the question that the consistory put to the young man who made confession of faith here tonight. We may have asked questions about his faith and what he believes, but there were also questions that we're about this. Do you love Jesus Christ? This is the question that we must ask of one another. We may ask lots of questions, lots of questions even about our own spiritual faith and understanding and knowledge and walk of life. But the fundamental question is, who is your Father? This is a question that we ought to ask of ourselves. Who is my father? Who is my father? Because that question, that question is the same as all the others, really. Do you believe? Do you have faith? Are you born again? Who is your Father? This was really the point Jesus is making when He asked that question. This was Jesus' own assessment. Now He puts it in the form of a conditional sentence, but He does so for a reason, precisely so He asked that question. For the Pharisees, this was really an accusation. An accusation that God was not their Father because they did not love Him. Because they did not love Him, they could not lay the claim that God was their father or that claim was exposed as false. That's true of the hypocrite in the church too. The question or the statement of Jesus is really an accusation. If God were your father, then you would love Jesus Christ. But for us also, who indeed love God in Jesus Christ? The answer to that question is a confirmation of our faith. You see, Jesus is teaching here two important truths about faith. Faith, of course, is the instrumental means by which we become sons of God. Faith is the means by which we receive Jesus Christ, by which we receive the Spirit, by which we receive our inheritance, that which makes us sons of God. But Jesus is teaching that spiritual ancestry is never a matter simply of claiming or saying or even confessing anything. As the Pharisees show, talk can be cheap, claims can be made, They're easy to make. It's easy to claim that God is your Father. Even God, the real God. We can confess that. We can say that as the Pharisees did. But Jesus is teaching if there's no spiritual resemblance to the Father, and indeed our lives are contrary to the life and will of the Father, then our claim is exposed as a lie. We are exposed as hypocrites and liars because even nature teaches that the Son resembles the Father. But Jesus is also teaching that spiritual ancestry is not simply a matter of whether or not there are sin in our lives either. That's important to note here. Jesus is not saying that if we simply find within ourselves sins like lying and murder, that therefore we are the sons of the devil and only the devil. Because Jesus knows that's the origin of us all, including his own children and God's own children. But at the same time, He's also teaching that if we do not find love in our heart for Jesus Christ as the Son of God, then that's all we are is liars. God is not our Father. That's what He teaches when He says as plain and simply as it could be said, if God were your Father, then He would love me. Now what does it mean to love God. And here we have to understand, first of all, that it's impossible to love God without faith. Faith proceeds from love. Or love proceeds from faith, rather. Love is the fruit of faith. And Jesus Himself takes note of that. You'll even notice it if you go on. The inseparable connection between faith and love. And it is inseparable, by the way. There is no such thing as faith without love. But at the same time, there's never love without faith either. And Jesus shows that when in our text He's speaking about love. He could have said, if God were your Father, you would believe in Me. Now he does state something similar to that elsewhere. And if you read further after our text, he talks about that. He goes on to say, and if I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me? Part of the sin and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees was that they didn't believe Him. Jesus is teaching there that you cannot have love for God, love for His Son, without faith. And He points that out by what follows when He goes on to say, For I proceeded forth and came from God, neither came I of Myself, but He sent Me. And you ask yourself, why is He saying that? What is that there? Why didn't He just put a period at the end of that? Because Jesus is explaining something. which is that the love we have for Him and the love we have for God is rooted in and flows out of faith. And Jesus identifies two particular articles of faith. What Jesus is saying here is, you do not love me, Because in the first place, you don't believe that I proceeded forth and came from God. You don't believe that I came not of myself, but of Him that sent me. There's the root problem. And so to love Jesus Christ as the Son of God, first of all, means we believe He is the Son of God. You cannot love Jesus as the Son of God without first believing that He is the Son of God. That's what Jesus is getting at. So we may say that love for Jesus Christ is that, in the first place, we believe that He is the Son of God. That's what Jesus is really getting at in the context when He says, if He'd known me, that's the knowledge of faith, He should have known my Father also. So faith believes that Jesus is the Son of God. That is, He is God out of God. He proceeds from God. He's light out of light. He is of the very essence of God the Father, so that in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, that when He speaks, God speaks. When He acts, God acts, even as Jesus Himself says. is to believe that He is eternal, that He is infinite, that He is the Holy and Righteous One, that He is the God of grace and glory, that He is our salvation, that He is our refuge, that He is everything God is, that He is everything God the Father is, except a different person. But if you love Jesus, you also will believe that He is the Son of God uniquely. And not only in the sense that He is the only begotten Son of God, because we, after all, are sons of God too. And so faith believes that He is the only and eternally begotten Son of God. Begotten, not made, not created, as we are. but also uniquely from this point of view, that he is the son of God in our flesh. As to his manhood, he didn't have an earthly father. All the talk of earthly fathers didn't apply to him except insofar as Joseph had adopted him. God was his father with regard to his human nature, too. Someone who loves Jesus Christ believes that that which makes Him uniquely wonderful and great, one of the reasons loves Him, therefore, is that He is God who came in our flesh, became one of us, that God who is eternal came down in time, that God who is all-glorious and wonderful humbled Himself, that God who cannot die in our flesh, in fact, did die. So that, in the first place, is what it means to love Jesus Christ. It means to believe, in Jesus' words, that He proceeded forth and came from God, and proceeded and came forth from God in those two wonderful, unique ways that apply only to Jesus. He is the eternally begotten Son of God, and God is His Father with regard also to His human nature. Secondly, if one loves Jesus, then one also trusts in Him for salvation from sin and death. That, too, is faith, the faith out of which love flows. If one does not trust in Jesus as the Son of God, then one's knowledge of faith or believing in faith is no real knowledge in faith at all. This is what Jesus is getting at when He adds that, "'I neither came of Myself, but He sent Me.'" Here Jesus switches a little bit. It's one thing Jesus is saying to know who I am, to believe that I am the Son of God, both as to my divine and human nature, that I am the Son of God, eternally begotten as to my person. But it's another thing to know Him as the one whom God sent. And as soon as Jesus says that, He's pointing out And he's highlighting the fact that he was ordained the Christ, that is, the one that faith trusts in and relies upon to accomplish God's salvation with regard to us. It is, in other words, a faith that believes that he was sent by God to save us from our sins and from death. When Jesus says He comes to do the will of His Father, Jesus is teaching that it is the will of the Father that there are certain human beings who will be the children of God. They will be the children of God in that they are saved and delivered from their sins. And the one who loves Jesus as the Son of God, is one, therefore, who believes that He is the Christ, that He is the Savior, that He is the Deliverer, believes and is certain about this, that we cannot save ourselves, we cannot deliver ourselves. We are, as Jesus points out even to the Pharisees, in bondage to sin. And from a very real sense, Jesus points out, whenever we sin, we show we're in bondage. That He is the Christ who liberates and frees. You might ask yourself, what does that include? What does that include? The faith that loves Jesus Christ and believes Him as the Christ who saves and delivers us from His sin, what does that include? It includes in the first place that He forgives our sins. Oh, Jesus points that out. But it's more than that too. It's that He actually delivers us from those sins. So we don't live in those sins. We may expect a life of perfection. It includes the eternal life that Jesus even speaks about here. that ye shall never see death. Never see death because we're freed from sin, not only because Jesus paid the penalty of sin, but also importantly, because his salvation includes that we are made sons of God. And this is where Jesus gets at the heart of the issue, because what we've been talking about is simply faith. And the question is, does faith love, Jesus says, the Son of God, yes or no? Oh, we receive him by faith only, but the question is, does the faith that receives him alone, as our God and Savior, continue in sin? Or does it change us and transform us so that we resemble God our Father? And Jesus' answer is clearly the latter. Because he says, if God is your Father, you would love me. And love is obedience to the will of God. Love, love for God, is to give one's life for God. Jesus is pointing that out. Jesus is pointing that out when He says, I am the Son of God. I am God's only begotten Son, and I come because He sent me. And because I'm an obedient son, which there are only really obedient sons, I obey Him. I obey Him because I love Him. He is my Father. In Jesus' teaching, and that is true of all the sons of God. So much is this true that Jesus makes it a statement of fact that cannot be denied. If God were your Father, If God, in fact, is the one who has given you life, not now like Jesus, as the only begotten Son of God, but one who has been begotten again from the dead, one who has been made the Son of God by faith, by giving the gift of faith, by being joined to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by that faith. If God is your Father, through the knowledge and trust of faith, then you will love Jesus Christ. The point is, if that is true from a natural viewpoint, if that is true in earthly physical life, with all the different variations and vagaries that can come upon earthly physical life, If that is true with regard to even sinful, wicked, ungodly people, how much more true is it of the reality? And that's why that question is so important. And the answer is what it is. Now what's the explanation for all this? Why is it that those who have God as their Father also love Jesus Christ? And you know the answer. The answer is really twofold. Because those who are children of God are in the first place, brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ, the original Son of God. And in the second place, as children of God, they will always love their Father. If that's true of earthly natural children, how much more the sons of God? Jesus is clearly not teaching that it is the love for Jesus Christ that makes us children of God. That's the charge sometimes. That's the charge, perhaps even tonight, of this preacher when he teaches what Jesus Himself teaches. that if you are the children of God, then you will love Jesus Christ. And if you don't love Jesus Christ, then you're not a child of God. And the claim is, well, you're implying then that your love makes you a child of God, your obedience makes you a child of God. That's not true. It's not even true in nature. Does a child who loves his father or mother, does that make her or him a child of God? What kind of nonsense is that? Who even thinks that way? Nevertheless, if God is your Father, you will love His Son, Jesus Christ, the One whom God sent and who proceeded forth from Him. Why is that? Again, the picture is so plain. We may say it's partly nature and partly nurture. Who is it that has given birth to us? It's God. God is our Father. That means there is, as it were, the spiritual DNA of God in us. God makes us His children, not simply by fiat, not simply by declaration, not simply by saying, you are my children, but he implants his own spirit in us. And thus, God's own life, to be more precise, the spirit of God's own Son is in his other children. How can it be, then, that one who is made a son of God does not resemble him? does not act like Him, behave like Him, think like Him. And don't forget, the heart of it all is how did you become the children of God? How did you become a child of God? The answer is God loved you. God gave birth to you. God chose you. God set His love on you. And that, therefore, will be the chief characteristic of His children. They love Him. But in the second place, who rears you? Who raises you? Is it really your earthly father and earthly teachers? Is it really your earthly pastor and minister? And the answer is no. They are all taught of God. That's the Bible's answer. My children shall be taught of me, O I use means. I speak through the mouths of fathers and the mouths of parents and the mouths of teachers and preachers, but God doesn't really even need that. Because sometimes, as we know full well, God brings a child into His family from circumstances where you'd say that's not even possible. Why? Because God taught them. Somehow, someway, God reared them. And so there's the whole nurture aspect. We will resemble God because God indeed teaches us. And what does God teach us? God teaches us his will, what he delights in, the way we should walk. God comes to us time and time again and says, love me and love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus' point is, this is a mark. There was a reason I read the marks of a Christian. And there's a reason why the mark of a Christian, although one can rightly say there's one mark of a Christian, which is reflected in that Belgic Confession, Article 29, which is faith, faith. But then again, faith can be faked. There is such a thing as historical faith and dead faith, which really are no faiths at all. Besides that, there's a reality that faith always works by love. There is no such thing as a faith without love. Why is that? Well, Jesus explains it here as well as anyone can possibly explain it. And while you read then that the mark of a Christian is faith and this, that when one has received Jesus Christ, the only Savior, the idea is by that faith, they love the true God and their neighbor. and especially, of course, their closest neighbor, which is the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. If God is your Father, then you will love Him. Amen. Let us pray. Lord, our God and Father, we thank Thee for Thy Son, Jesus Christ, that he may, by thy great work of love, through him, through sending him, through him as our Christ and elder brother, we might be incorporated into thy family, being both adopted and transformed as thy children, to live, and live not any life, certainly not the life of our flesh and the life of our earthly fathers, but the life of love, which is the life of thee, the living God, who has so loved us. We thank Thee for this Thy great salvation. Give us grace to so live in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen.