Good morning, let's all stand together and we'll sing hymn number 40, hymn number 40. Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not Thy compassions They fail not As Thou hast been Thou forever will be Great is Thy faithfulness Great is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided. ♪ Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me ♪ Summer and winter and springtime and harvest Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above Join with all nature in manifold witness to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love. Great is thy faithfulness, Great is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me. Pardon for sin, and a peace that endureth. Mine own dear presence to cheer and to guide, Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside Great is thy faithfulness Great is thy faithfulness Morning by morning new mercy I can be seated. Hymn number 67, number 67. O Savior, as my eyes behold the wonders of thy might untold, the heavens in glorious light arrayed, the vast creation thou hast made. And yet to think Thou lovest me My heart cries out How can it be? How can it be? How can it be? That God should love her so like me? Oh, how can it be? As at the cross I humbly bow And gaze upon thy thorn-crowned brow And view the precious fleeting form By cruel nails so bruised and torn Suffering was for me. In grief I cry. How can it be? How can it be? How can it be? That God should love a soul like me? Oh, how can it be? How can it be? How can it be? Was ever grace so full and free? From heights of bliss to depths of woe In loving kindness Thou didst go from sin and shame to rescue me. Oh, love divine, how can it be? How can it be? How That God should love a soul like me Oh, how can it be? Let's open God's Word together. And I'd like us to read Psalm 27. Psalm 27. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. For in the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion. In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall set me up upon a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me. Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer me. When thou said, seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face far from me. Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave me not. Neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty. I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage. and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Our kind and gracious, most gracious and heavenly Father, we join our hearts together this morning and praise thee in our hearts for thy great goodness and mercy. Thank you for your blessed word that we just read. Thank you for the blessed promises of your eternal, unchanging word. Thank you for the faith you've given us to believe you, to believe your word, to trust in your son. Help us to worship him this morning. Help us to honor him, to lift him up, to set him forth. Give us eyes to see him more clearly. Give us a fresh glimpse of our dear Savior. Oh, how beautiful is our Savior. Thank you, you've given us a glimpse of him. We thank you that you've sent him to be our substitute for sin. Thankful that he by himself purged our sin is now set at our right hand. Making intercession for us and in him is our hope. And it's a good hope. It's an everlasting hope because it's in him who cannot fail. Thank you for the gathering of your people. Thank you for this time of worship in this. Dreary world that so Such a burden to us, we're a burden to ourselves. And we can come and read your word that we can believe what thou has said. For you're able to bring it to pass what you've purposed. And how we take great comfort in that. And it's never a fool's errand to believe you, to believe your word. Thou must be believed, thou canst be believed. You can be trusted fully. Trust you with our never-dying souls, the souls of our children and our grandchildren, our loved ones. Save them by your grace, we pray, those that we love, those that we call out their names from time to time. Lord, be with us in this service, come and speak through Cody as he stands before us and opens your word. Make your word alive to us. Send your spirit to enliven our hearts and our minds and give us ears and eyes, spiritual ears, spiritual eyes, and speak to us, Lord. We need you to speak to us. We need to hear from you. We can't do nothing without you. We look to you to supply our every need and you're fully able and can supply every need of every soul and not be in the least diminished. How great thou art. Thank you for the throne of grace whereby we have access through Christ our Lord. Honor him in this service. He alone is worthy. Save your people. Keep us, guide us, lead us, and leave us not to ourselves. We ask these things in Christ's dear name. Amen. Let's all stand together again. We'll sing the hymn in the bulletin. A debtor to Jehovah's law, my soul by And justice was about to draw his sword to shed my blood. Sinner, stand forth, he sternly cried. and pay me what you owe. Tis done, said Jesus, for I died to lose Him and live. I am his surety, I the Lord. Behold my word. He spake and justice dropped his sword and said, I'm satisfied. When first I heard I sure did, boys and gays. It made my fainting heart rejoice And made my songs awake. Take the praise of grace and love so vast. Be Thou my surety all my days, and clear Well, we're all thankful to have Brother Cody with us again this morning. I'm pretty sure everybody knows Cody. I sure have looked forward to hearing the message this morning. So I'll get out of the way, Brother Cody. You come on. Bring the message. Good morning. It's good to be with you all again. Your brethren in Kingsport send their love and greetings. I feel like I usually forget to say that, but they always do. I invite your attention to the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 31. Let me say this, it's always a tremendous honor to be asked to come preach God's word, his glorious gospel. I don't have anything new to tell you, just the same old story that hopefully we all love to hear. This isn't about me, it's not about us, it's all about our Lord Jesus Christ and I pray that he'll be glorified today. With me here in Jeremiah 31, I want to Preach from this one verse, it's verse three. It's from the first time God ever truly enabled me to rejoice in his word. This is one of the earliest verses I've memorized and come to truly love and adore. I find this verse absolutely precious, and I hope you do too. Jeremiah 31, verse three. Says, the Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness, have I drawn thee. What a wonderful verse of scripture. Now, as I read that verse, this question comes to my mind. Does this apply to me? People often err assuming all the scriptures pertain to all people. That's just not so. This is the title of my message, Does God Love Me? This is a very important question. And it's a question we all need to ask. Does God Almighty The Lord God, Jehovah, does he love me? Now, it goes without saying there's a very common misconception that we're just wasting our time asking that question because of course God loves me. I had people all my life growing up. I'd hang out with people and they'd take me somewhere, drop me off at home and say, God loves you. Smile, Jesus loves you. I heard that all the time. I still hear it fairly often. Most people believe in a universal love. It's just by default God has extended his love to all. That's just not so. And here's the thing. I'm not here to give you my opinion on the matter. My opinion and yours don't mean squat. What matters is what God says. I'm gonna show you that's what God said, all right? Now, if we wanna go home, believe in ourselves or believe in some hack of a preacher rather than believe in God, that's on us. We're commanded to believe God and his word, and I pray he'll enable us to be. The notion that God has extended his love and now it's up to me to love him back, it's up to me to accept his love. It's up to me to do something with his love. It's up to me to now I'm going to earn his love. I'm going to prove myself worthy of his love or vice versa. Who cares? I'm not interested in God. I don't need his love. Listen, if God's love is not powerful enough to save me, If God's love is not effectual enough to cause me to love him back, if God's love and God's love alone is not sufficient to keep me and everyone whom he loves out of hell, then what kind of love is that? If God's love can't keep me out of hell and eternal condemnation for sin, then what kind of love is it? Seriously. Love that fails In accomplishing its purpose, what kind of love would that be? I remind you, this is God we're talking about. This is God's love we're talking about. Now, I understand our love fails. It just does. It's no wonder divorce is so common. And I'm not here to pick on someone who's been divorced. That's not my business. Say you're not divorced. Do you ever get angry at your spouse? I sure hope I'm not the only one. I hope we're not the only ones. But isn't it sad that someone we love, the person we love the most, we can find ourselves fuming angry at them from time to time? Isn't that sad? Isn't that a sad testament of our love? God's love isn't like that. God doesn't change his mind, well, you see what they did? I'm not gonna love him anymore. I just, I can't put up with this anymore. That's not how God loves. Aren't you thankful? Let's see what God's word has to say about this. Verse three again, it says, the Lord hath appeared of old unto me. That's a particular person. It's not for everybody. Last time I was here, we looked at when the Lord appeared unto Moses. The Lord appeared unto Abraham. He appeared unto Isaac, unto Jacob. He appears to His people and to His chosen people alone. Verse 1 says, The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee. It's just like, I love my spouse. You love your spouse. God loves his. God loves it. His love is a distinguishing love. It's a particular love. He said, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. He doesn't love everybody. He doesn't love everybody. He goes on to say right here, he says, therefore, with love and kindness, have I drawn thee. Thee. Not everybody's drawn, you know that? You say God loves everybody, well then why is not everybody drawn to love him back? Why is everybody not drawn to him? We're gonna look at a few verses today, turn to Psalm 65. And I'm not here just to hammer home a doctrine, that's not my goal. That's not my goal at all. I pray that God might reveal his love to us today. It's a loving message. It's a loving, it's a hard saying to the flesh. Oh, but to God's people, it's the most loving, wonderful thing we've ever heard. To hear of his love for his own. Look here in Psalm 65, verse four. Psalm 65, four. Our brother David learned this by experience. He said, blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. Whom does God love? He loves those whom he chose. The blessed man or the blessed woman is the man or woman whom God from eternity chose. He chose to love, He set His everlasting love upon them. And in time, He causes that man or woman to approach unto Him. He draws them to Himself because He loved them. Because He loved them. Look over at Psalm 135. And I pray we'll see this. All the scriptures are in complete agreement here. They don't contradict each other, not at all. Look at Psalm 135, verse 4. Psalm 135 verse 4, For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself and Israel for his peculiar treasure, his purchased possession. God chose to love Jacob, that wretched sinner Jacob. Why? Because it pleased him to do so. He didn't deserve it. If you know, maybe someone, maybe someone here today has heard all their life. God loves everyone. Of course, God loves me. Why would he not love me? And now you're hearing me say this that contradicts what you've heard all your life. Perhaps it perhaps it angers you. Let me just ask you this question. Why? Why? Why would it anger you that God loves a particular people? Is it because you think that's not fair? Makes sense, right? Well, how could God love you and not you? Let me say this. God is God and we're not. He's the potter, we're the clay. Cannot the Lord do what he will with his own? Hath not the potter power over the clay? We're not in the place of God. Here's a better question. Why would God love me? Ask yourself that question. You know, people like to use the term soul searching. Do some soul searching. Let's do some soul searching. Why would God love me? We just sang a song. How can it be that God should love a soul like me? That's a good question to ask. That's a great question for us to ask ourselves. I've heard this said, and I sure agree with this. I can see why God would hate Esau, but it will never cease to amaze me how in the world could God Almighty love Jacob. I see why God would hate me. I see that crystal clear because God has shown me what I am. But how in the world God could love me? I just, I can't. Why would God Almighty look my way? What is man that thou art mindful of him? How can it be? Look back in our text, Jeremiah 31. I want us to see the context here of verse 3, look at verse 1, Jeremiah 31, verse 1. It's always important to see the scriptures in their context. Jeremiah 31, verse 1. At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel. and they shall be my people." God has a people and he tells us right here who it is. All the families of Israel. Now it's not talking about that country in the Middle East. It's not talking about them. Israel And it starts with Jacob. God changed Jacob's name. He gave him a new name, Israel. It's the same person, okay? And all through the scriptures, Israel represents God's people, God's chosen, God's elect. Israel, spiritual Israel. And God right here declares His everlasting love for them. Israel. In Romans 9, we're told that, he tells us, it's not the country. They're not all Israel, which are of Israel. He says, the children of the promise, they're counted for the seed. In Isaac, shall thy seed be called. It's talking about his elect people. The God of Israel, that phrase is in the Bible 203 times. The God of Israel. He's the God of Israel. Now I want to show you something. Turn back the previous book, Isaiah chapter 54. shouldn't be too far Isaiah 54 look right here verse 5 with me Isaiah 54 verse 5 for thy maker is thine husband the Lord of hosts is his name and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel the God of the whole earth shall he be called as maker and Jehovah He's the God of the whole earth, but as husband and redeemer, he's the God of Israel. He's the Savior of Israel. Turn back to our text. Jeremiah 31, verse 1 again. At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Why? Because I love them with an everlasting love. Because what we're told in Romans 11 verse 26, all Israel shall be saved. They shall be. Anytime I get to a text where God says, I will and they shall. God doesn't want to be your God. He has a people, he said, I will be their God. God isn't hoping that you'll wind up to be one of his people. He said, they shall be my people, period. It's not up to us. It's not in our hands. God loves whom he will. They're his people. He's their God. And nothing can ever change that. I can't change that. Look right here at verse 11. This is wonderful too. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. You know what's stronger than us? Our sin. We're in bondage to our sin. But He tells us right here, He hath redeemed us. If we're within, if we can identify with Jacob, conniving trickster, evil brother, sinner, He hath redeemed us. Truly God is good to Israel, is He not? Look right here at verse 2. Thus saith the Lord, the people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness, even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. God's people are those who are left of the sword. I obviously didn't know what we were going to sing today, but I want to read a few words of that song we just sang in the bulletin. You think about the sword of God's justice. And actually, we don't know anything about that. We think we're good, fine people. We think God ought to look our way. Why should he? Listen to this. As a debtor to Jehovah's law, my soul by nature stood, and justice was about to draw his sword to shed my blood. That's what we deserve. The soul that sinneth it shall die. We're gonna stand before God. We must stand and give an account. Okay? Sinners stand forth, he sternly cried, and pay me what you owe. We didn't say a word. but someone stood in our place. Someone is gonna stand in our place, and listen. "'Tis done,' said Jesus, for I died. Loose him and let him go. I am his surety, I the Lord. Behold my wounded side.' He spake, and justice dropped his sword and said, I'm satisfied." Do you need that? That blessed my heart so much. I knew I was mentioning a verse about the sword. Oh, that blessed my heart. Do you need a surety? Do you need a substitute to stand in your place? I love the way that's worded right here. Those left of the sword, they found grace in the wilderness. You know, we're living in a wilderness. It's a wilderness. This world and myself, it's just a desert, barren land. Hmm. Do you need God's grace? I thought of our brother Noah. It tells us that he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. God, if you look at the account back there in Genesis, he tells us that God looked down from heaven and he saw every imagination of the thoughts and intent of man's heart was nothing but evil continually. And then it tells us, but Noah found grace. Well, Noah must have been an exception. No, no. You know, there's just one vile, sinful heart of man. We have the same heart. God says it's desperately wicked, and He knows it. Deceitful, so deceitful we convince ourselves there's something good in there, when there ain't. Thank God for His grace. Noah wasn't looking for God's grace. You know, you find something when you're looking for it, don't you? God's ways aren't our ways. Noah wasn't looking for it, neither was I. Grace found me. He's found of them that sought him not, asked not for him. That's what he tells us. You know, think about this. Grace, grace is not something we merit. Grace is a gift. Grace is a sovereign gift. God gives it to whom he will. He gives it to those whom he loves. The gift of grace, aren't you thankful for the gift of grace? It tells us there at the end of verse two, he said, when I went to cause him to rest, we don't have to go accomplish rest. People are living, trying to earn eternal rest, trying to achieve this, trying to get it. Christ already purchased it for us. Christ came into this world. He labored to give us rest. He said, come unto me. You quit trying to save yourself. Come to me, all you that labor in our heavenly land. I'll give you rest. He is our rest. People want to keep the Sabbath. Christ is our Sabbath rest. Look to him. Rest in him and him alone. Oh, God gives his people rest, glorious rest. God's love for his own. It's a particular, distinguishing, special, amazing, saving love. That's point one. I got two more points, I'll try to be quick. God's everlasting love. You know, first let me say this, it's his love. So many people like to talk about how they love God, their love for God. Not me, I have no interest in telling you about my love for God. I'm only interested in thinking of and talking about his love for his own. That's the only love worth mentioning. There's no other love worth talking about. Just His. Just His love. If I'm going to stand here and boast of my love for God, I clearly don't know God or a thing about His love. Otherwise, I'd understand. Only His. Not mine. Only His is worth mentioning. I love this too. There's a hymn I like. It says this. His love had no beginning, no cause in me was found, that he should choose to save me, a sinner strongly bound. The cause isn't found in us. And if we love him, it's because he first loved us. We're not going to get the glory for any of this. None of it. It's his love. His love alone. His love, he loved us freely. It's not that Well, you're not a good spouse anymore. I think I'm just gonna, this time I'll leave you. God said concerning his own, he said, I'll never leave you, never. I'm never gonna forsake you. You know, we just read the verse about father and mother forsaking me, the Lord will take me up. It doesn't matter who leaves us, our Lord won't. Our Lord will never leave us, never. Though we certainly don't deserve him. I love thinking about this. We cannot earn God's love, but we can't lose it either. Turn with me to the book of Romans. Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5, verse 8. Romans 5, 8. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." I want to comment on that word, commendeth. It means to show, to prove, to establish, to exhibit. That's what it means. God showed his love. God proved his love for his people. It tells us right here in verse 6, it's the ungodly, sinners, God proved his love for them by sending Christ to die for them. You know, it's one thing to say, I love you. It's another thing to prove it by your actions. Well, our text, he said it, right? I've loved you with an everlasting love. There in Romans 5, 8, he proved it. He came and he died for us. Now, if God has loved me with an everlasting love, if Christ, because of his eternal love for me, came and died for me, Do you think it's even remotely possible that I can somehow get myself out of his love? You know, if my hope is in my decision, then yeah, I can see that. If my hope is in have I done enough, yeah, it probably ain't gonna work out too well. But if it all hinges on him and his love for me and what his love has accomplished for my soul, I can't do anything to mess that up. Neither can you, brother. Oh, God's love is everlasting. It's continuous. It's never-ending. Never-ending. While you're here in Romans, turn over to chapter 8, familiar chapter. I want to read the last two verses there. Let me say this about God's love. God's love is in a person. You say His love is two people. There's one whom God loves. Look here in Romans 8, 38. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Now, nothing can separate, I just told you, we can't lose the love God has given us. Nothing. Not life, not death. Nothing in between. Nothing can separate us from God's love. But he tells us there at the end, God's love is in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now, God loves us for Christ's sake. Not because of something good about me. For Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. If there's something good in here, it's Christ in me. You want to see Cody outside of Christ? There's nothing good in there. Nothing. Nothing. I mean, nothing. Think about this. When it comes to who God loves, think about what God loves. God loves righteousness. Do you know what we are? Sin. Sin. That's all we are. From the top to the bottom. Sin. God doesn't love that. God hates sin. God loves truth. You know what we are? Lies. We come forth from our mother's womb speaking lies. God is true. Every man's a liar. It's what he says. God is light. And in him is no darkness at all. You know what we are? Darkness. We are darkness. You know, darkness was upon the face of the earth until God said, let there be light. Until God saves us by his grace, there's nothing but darkness here. Christ the light came into the world and men love darkness rather than light because we're evil. Let me make the point here. We are not lovable. We are not what God loves. If God is going to love you or me, that must be in the Lord Jesus Christ. We must be in the Lord Jesus Christ, and God's love to us can only be in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, why would God love me? There's nothing lovable here, there's just not. Turn to the book of John with me, John chapter three. Look at verse 35, John 3, 35. Oh, if we could learn this. John 3, 35 says, The father loveth the son and hath given all things into his hand. Who does God love? He loves his son. He loves his only begotten son in whom he's well pleased. If we're not in Christ, God can't love us. Oh, well God is love, of course God loves you. I feel like I quote this verse every time I preach. Psalm 5 verse 5 says that God hates all workers of iniquity. Not most, not some, all. Does that capture any of us? Anybody here a worker of iniquity? That means someone who commits sin. God's going to love us. We must be in Christ. Otherwise, he can have nothing to do with us but to cast us out forever. But in everlasting love, God chose a people in his son. Scriptures plainly declare that. Read Ephesians 1, Ephesians 1 verse 4, chosen in him. There in Romans 8 it also tells us that the people he chose, he conformed to the image of his son. Because here's the thing, unless we're one with Christ, unless we're a spitting image of him, we can't enter into God's eternal kingdom. And that's what God's everlasting love has done for his people. It's made us to look just like him. Eternally, vitally, perfectly, inseparably, if that's a word, joined to him. One in him. You say, well, what about John 3.16? You're hearing John chapter 3. Let's read it. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. You see, there it is. God so loved the world. He loves everybody without exception. Everybody in the world, God loves them. You know, you can believe that if you want to. I pray God will give you a true understanding of what it means. There is no fault with that verse at all. I love that verse. I adore that verse. But it's not declaring that God loves everybody. That's not what it's saying. Let's back up a minute. Based on our text, whom does God love? Israel. Romans not. They're not all Israel, which are of Israel. The verse that tells us, Colossians 3.11, that Christ is all and in all, it tells us there's no difference between the Jew and Greek. Circumcision, uncircumcision, bond, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free. What he's saying is he has people all over this world from throughout every generation, both Jew and Greek. It doesn't matter who we are. It doesn't matter what we are. God has a people out of every nation, kindred, tongue, people. That's what it's saying. That's what it's saying. And because God so loved them, he gave himself for them. Now, what about that whosoever? Whosoever will believe on him. I love, you who believe on Christ know this to be true. The whosoever's right there, whosoever believeth in him, I'll tell you who they are. They are spiritual Israel. They are all those whom God has loved with an everlasting love. They're all the Jacobs, all the Israel. And because God has loved them with an everlasting love in time, in our time of love, the Spirit will come to us and move upon us and reveal Christ to us and cause us to believe on Him. Look at verse 36 here. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. If we live our whole life and we never believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone, that just evidences the fact that we were not one of God's people. God did not love us. And I tell you this too, we would die not loving Him either. Die loving self, hating God. And that's where we'd all be but God. Because of God's everlasting love, He gives faith in Christ. And the end of this faith is everlasting life with Christ and in Christ. Look back at our text with me. Jeremiah 31, 3. The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee. If God loves us, he will draw us. Plain and simple. You know, when you see a therefore in the scriptures, we'd be wise to back up and see what it's there for. Is that not clearly what it's declaring? If God loves us, he will appear to us and he will draw us to himself. And I love thinking about this, the word draw right there, it means drag. He will drag us. But it also means to lift out. What do you think about God dragging you to himself? Does that mean or is that the most loving thing he could do for you? What do you think about being lifted out Lifted out from all your sin, all your shame, all your reproach, your evil. What if God were to lift you out of that? Would you be okay with that? You know, someone might say, I love you, and then we're just gonna live in different states. You live your life, I'll live my life. We'll just have nothing to do with each other, but I love you. That's not love, is it? God's love won't leave us alone. God's love will draw us to him. You know, don't you love to be snuggled up next to the one you love? I do. You know, Christ prayed that his people might be with him where he is. Why? Because he loves them. Love wants to be together. Love wants to have union and fellowship. And God's love does. Ours may or may not, but his does. Oh, his does. He draws sinners to himself with loving kindness. Loving kindness. David said, how excellent is thy loving kindness, O God. That means the goodness and kindness of God in redeeming us from all our enemies. You who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, is it not the goodness of God that has caused you to believe on him? Is that not what has led you to repentance? Meaning seeing yourself for what you are and seeing Christ as your all in all and trusting in him and him alone. That's what repentance is. Is it not the goodness of God that has brought you to that place? I'm going to end with something you'll probably laugh, but before I get to that, let me say this. God will see to it that all of his people, all whom he has loved with an everlasting love, God will see to it that every single one of them will fall helplessly in love with his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't depend on us to, well, I think I'm gonna believe on him now. I think I see him as beautiful now. No, God will see to it, okay? Now, here's my silly example. Many years ago, when I began having romantic interests, I convinced myself, I'm in love with this girl. usually didn't reciprocate. I felt like I was in love, but she didn't feel the same way. You know, people talk about God and His love like that. It's that God loves you and He's just dying for you to love Him back. What a pitiful God. What an awful, miserable, pathetic love. That's not how God loves. That's not how His love works at all. Is that the kind of God you want to believe in? Seriously. If so, I feel so sorry for you. No. If God loves us, He will have us. In fact, He already does. He already does. I didn't show you, but in John 3, it says in verse 29, He that hath the bride is the bridegroom. You know who the bridegroom is? That's the Lord Jesus Christ. You know who it says He hath? The bride. You know who that is? the people God has loved with an everlasting love. He has her. He doesn't hope to have her. He doesn't, well, let's see how this ends. Let's see if she wants me. No, he has her and he hath. That means he'll always have her. Does that not make you rejoice? Oh, my soul. And not a single person God has loved with an everlasting love can possibly perish or be separated from that glorious love. I thought of this song. It says, and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's love? Died he for me who caused his pain, for me who him to death pursued? Amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me again? Who am I and what have I done? I'm sinner. I crucified the Lord of glory, wanted nothing to do with him. And yet in eternal love, mercy, and grace, God purposed, God chose to save me. And in loving kindness, he came, revealed himself to me, drew me to himself. And by that grace, he continues to draw me right, right to his side again and again and again. Is this so for you? Does God love me? Does God love us? If we've been drawn to Christ, he does. If we found him whom our soul loveth, he does. Whereas we did not before, if we find the Lord Jesus Christ to be altogether lovely, my friends, clearly God loves us. Praise God. I pray that he would be pleased to reveal himself, reveal his everlasting love in Christ to us, and by that, loving kindness, draw us to himself both now and forevermore for his glory and for our good. Amen. Let's have a word of prayer. Our merciful, loving, kind God, we thank you so much for your love. Thank you for your everlasting love that you've been pleased to bestow upon your people for all eternity. We are so unworthy of you and your love. By your grace, we know what we deserve, and it's not pleasant to think about. But we praise your holy name for sending your only begotten son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come trade places with us and die for our sins. that we might be with him, that we might be in your presence forever and ever. Thank you so much, dear God. I thank you for the opportunity to preach your gospel. Please bless it to the hearts of those gathered here today. cause our minds to consider the things we've heard, cause our hearts to look to Christ and run to him without delay, to look nowhere else but to him and him alone. Thank you for your word. It's so glorious. Thank you for these dear brethren. I pray that you'd be with them. Bless them continually. Pray for their pastor and his wife. Pray that you bring them back home safely. Lord, be with all your people. Pray for your will to be done in all things and for your name to be glorified above every name. Please forgive us of our sin. Please save us according to your mercy. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Thank you, Cody. Thankful for the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord, in him alone. Let's stand and we'll sing a closing hymn together, hymn number 118. Number 118. When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died My richest gain I count but loss, And poor contempt on all my pride. Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my God. All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood. Save from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown? Were the whole realm of nature mine That were a present far too small Love so amazing, so divine Demands my soul, my life, my all. We'll meet again at six o'clock, God willing. Dismissed.