Introduction and Review

Weaver reviews the morning message on loving God with all the heart, emphasizing that love is obedience to God's commandments.

I want you to open your Bibles tonight, if you would please, to two passages, Psalm 18 and Psalm 116. Psalm 18 and Psalm 116. I'm going to be bringing a message tonight that actually follows the one that I brought this morning, and it is going to be dealing basically with the same subject. This morning I preached the message on what it means to love the Lord with all of our hearts. I'll take a few moments and review. But tonight the message is prerequisites for loving the Lord. And I want you to look in Psalm 18, verse 1. David says, I will love the Lord my strength. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. Now look in Psalm 116, and you can hold that passage because we will be turning over there just a little bit later. But notice Psalm 116 in verse 1.

In fact, we sang this this morning. David said, I love the Lord because he had heard my voice and my supplication. I preached many times on loving the Lord. And I pointed out this morning that loving the Lord is actually obedience for the Bible says that love is indeed the fulfilling of the law. You remember I quoted from John 14 in verse 21, where our Lord said, He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And in John 14 in verse 24, He said, He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings. And then it went to 1 John 5 in verse 3, where the Word of God says, For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and they are not grievous unto us. And then we turn to 1 John 5 verses 3 and 4, where the Bible said, And hereby do we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

The Central Purpose of Life

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, which includes loving Him as He deserves.

Now, it's not my intention tonight to re-preach the message that I preached this morning. However, I can assure you of one thing, that a lot of the messages, especially the one like I preached this morning, bears repeating over and over, simply because we're so forgetful in our lives and we're so easily distracted from our central purpose in life. And if you ask, what in the world is our central purpose in life? I hope you know the answer. What is the chief end of man? It's to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And certainly one of the ways that we glorify God and enjoy Him is by loving Him the way He demands. Let me rephrase that. Not only loving Him the way He demands, but by loving Him the way He deserves to be loved. He is indeed worthy of all honor, love, praise and glory. You know, I've often asked this question to a lot of people because there are so many that profess to be Christians, and yet their hearts and their minds are so foreign to God and his word and his truth and his principles. But my question is this.

Commands to Love the Lord

Scripture contains many commands for God's people to love Him, raising the question of why such commands are necessary.

Now, it may surprise you, as you read through the Bible, how many commands there are to love the Lord. And I will tell you something else that should surprise you. That is how many commands there are for God's people to love Him. Let me just give you a little. You don't have to turn to these texts. I'll quote them. Some of them I used this morning, like Deuteronomy 6 and verse 5, where the Bible said, And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Then in Deuteronomy 6 and verse 20, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and mayest obey his voice, and thou mayest cleave unto him, for he is thy life and the length of thy days. Then you get to Deuteronomy 30 and verse 6, and the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart.

Wow, did you hear that? That God will circumcise our hearts and the hearts of our seed, that we may love Him with all of our heart and with all of our soul, that we may live. Then Deuteronomy chapter 30 and verse 16, he said, in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in His ways and keep His commandments, His statutes and His judgments. Pastor quoted this verse this morning, From Psalm 31 in verse 23, Oh, love the Lord, all ye his saints, for the Lord preserved the faithful and plentifully rewarded the proud doer. Did you hear what he said? Oh, love the Lord, his saints. Have you ever asked yourself, why does God have to command us to love him if we are his children, if we are his people? When you get to Psalm 97 in verse 10, he says, You that love the Lord hate evil. He, God, preserved the souls of his saints.

The Problem of Falling into Sin

Weaver shares how hearing of Christians falling into sin prompted him to seek how to fortify oneself against sin.

He delivered them out of the hands of the wicked. Let me tell you what really brought about this particular message. Recently, not in too distant past, I heard of a number of Christians, some of whom I knew, I thought I knew, at least rather intimately, and that these Christians had fallen headlong into sin, disobedience, and rebellion. And I'll be absolutely honest, a couple of them really, thoroughly, genuinely shocked me. And the reason I was shocked was because I believe that these individuals who fell into sin were far more grounded in the Word than they were. And I believe that they had far more character and integrity that evidently they really and truly did not have. And some of the sins were just what I would call absolutely stupid and not just stupid, but blatantly. Contrary to the Word of God. And when I thought about these individuals that I had known for years and cherished.

As brethren in the Lord. I immediately thought of Galatians 6 and verse one. Where the Scripture says very clearly, Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

I don't want to sin. And I don't want to fall. And I don't want to grieve the heart of my Heavenly Father. So the question I had to ask myself is this. How do I fortify myself? And how do I strengthen myself that I might not sin against God? You remember what he said in Jeremiah 44 in verse 4? Now listen to this. In Jeremiah 44 in verse 4, God said, Oh, do not that abominable thing which I hate. God hates sin. And God says, oh, do not that abominable thing which I hate. God does not want us to sin. Do you remember what he said in 1 John 2 and verse 1? He said, my little children, these things I write unto you that you sin not.

Fortifying Against Sin

While Scripture, prayer, and fellowship are means, the central answer is loving the Lord with all the heart.

I wrote these, he said, to keep you from sinning. Then he went on to say, but if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. So my question is this. How do we fortify ourselves so that we do not sin against our Heavenly Father?

Now, I'm sure that there are probably a multitude of answers to that question. One of those answers would be fortifying ourselves with Scripture. Do you remember what David said in Psalm 119, verses 9 through 11? He said, Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word, with my whole heart have I sought thee. Oh, let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee." Surely we could fortify ourselves with Scripture. Not only that, we must not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

Moreover, the Bible tells us that we should be in constant and continual prayer, praying without ceasing. But not only that, there's the fellowshipping with the saints, and there is also the giving and receiving of biblical rebukes and biblical admonition. There are a multitude of answers that we could give to the question, how do we fortify ourselves against sinning against God? What I want to do tonight is what I basically did this morning in one sense of the word. I want to focus on one answer, and that answer is loving the Lord with all of our hearts. Because I believe if we love the Lord with all of our hearts, all these other things that I mentioned are automatically going to fall in line, and we're automatically going to be doing those things. So how in the world Do we love Him with all our heart?

First Prerequisite: A Holy Determination

From Psalm 18:1, David's 'I will love Thee' shows love is an act of the will, a choice to love God and reject sin.

First of all, we've got to understand that He deserves to be loved with all of our heart. He deserves all of our devotion and all of our honor, praise, and worship. So in order to accomplish that task of loving him, I'm going to show you two prerequisites tonight. The first one is found in Psalm 18 in verse one. And I want you to note, first of all, a holy determination. Look what David said in verse one. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. David expresses a truth in verse one that is needed in each of our lives. The truth that He expresses is that of a holy determination to love the Lord. Now, I want you to note what David states. Look at it very clearly. He says, I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength. He does not say, I want to love Thee, or I'll try to love Thee, or I hope I can love Thee. No. He gives a dedicated determination. He says, I will. There are no doubts. There are no questions. There are no maybes. He is determined that he's going to love the Lord by saying, I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength. So there is then not only a verbal, but a volitional determination as well when he says, I will love Thee.

Now, the word love here in the Hebrew is the word rakam, which literally means to love, to love deeply, to love with all feelings. In other words, David is saying here that he's determined to love the Lord in the way that he should be loved. Now, I said this is a holy determination. How can I use the word holy? Because our God is holy, and anything that's connected with Him has to be holy as well. In Revelation 15 and verse 4, the Scripture declares, Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For only thou art holy. So any and everything that we have to do with our God has to be done in holiness, because everything that God is and everything that God does is absolute holiness. Now, we understand the truth of 1 John 4 and verse 19, where the scripture says we love him. Why?

Because he first loved us. Lord, there'd be no way in the world that we could love Him without Him first loving us. Moreover, I want you to stop and think about this. Even though David has said, I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength. Although there is this holy determination, and although you and I may use those same words, we have to understand that without him, we can do nothing. Our Lord said that in John 15 in verse five, without me, you can do nothing. Let me ask you a question. Is loving our heavenly father something? Well, if it is without him, you can't do it. You have to have the grace and the mercy of God.

Now, there's a truth that David is giving us in Psalm 18, verse 1, when he said, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. This is a truth that you and I need to remember and we need to rehearse it over and over in our minds. And we need to keep it there constantly. It is a very simple truth. Here it is that love is an act of the will. Love is an act of the will. It is true in relationship to our God. It is also true in relationship to others. Years ago, I had a man come into my office for counseling. And the interesting thing is when most people come for counseling, they really and truly do not want counseling. What they want is for you to put your stamp of approval upon what they've already determined to do. That's what they really genuinely want. Well, this man had determined he was going to divorce his wife.

Now, there was no biblical reason for him to do so. He just wanted to get rid of her. So I told him, I said, Sir, the scripture says the husbands are to love their wives. I said, God requires you and God commands you and you're obligated to love your wife. He said, well, I just don't love her. I said, well, let me ask you, is she still living in the house with you? Well, he said, yes. I said, would you say, then, that she is your closest neighbor, since no one else lives in the house with you? Well, he said, I guess so. I said, well, that's wonderful, because God says that you're to love your neighbors yourself. Well, he said, I don't even know that I could love her as a neighbor. I said, you don't.

I said, would you counter an enemy? He said, of course. Yes, she's an enemy. I said, great. The scripture says, love your enemies. I said, you can't get out of it. I don't care if she's your neighbor. I don't care if she's an enemy. She's still your wife, and God commands you to love her. Have you ever stopped and asked yourself this question? What in the world is happening between men and women?

Some have been married 30 and 40 years, and they're getting divorces. I never will forget hearing years ago about an old man. He was 92. The woman was 90. They were standing before the judge, and they were getting a divorce. And the judge looks at them and he says, you're 92 and your wife's 90 and you've been married 75 years and you're getting a divorce. Why? Well, the old man said, well, we wanted a divorce years ago, but we decided that we would stay together for our children's sake. And our baby, who is 65, just got married last month, and we want to get our divorce. Well, you understand, the truth of the matter, if you live together with somebody that long, it seems to me that you could make it a few more years. But why is it there's so many divorces?

And the answer is this. Because we have never really understood that love, first of all, is an act of the will and is something that we choose to do. And it's something that we must do on an absolute daily basis. So when God commands us to love, He's commanding our wills.

Now, it is true that oftentimes there are emotions evolved, but these emotions may follow, but they're never to lead. Let me try to give you an illustration. I want you to keep in mind that we love Him because He first loved us. And I want you to consider David's determination when David said, I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength. We must remember that first and foremost that love is an act of the will.

Now, does God command husbands to love their wives? Yes. Ephesians 5, verse 25. Husbands, love your wives. That's a command. Do you realize that God is not commanding feelings? He is commanding your will. Here is something that you are required to do by the command of God. You don't command feelings. You don't command emotions. You command the will. Does God command us to love our neighbor? And the answer is yes. In Leviticus chapter 19, he said, Thou shalt not suffer sin upon thy neighbor. Thou shalt rebuke him in any wise. When you get to James 2 and verse 8, he says, If you fulfill the royal law, you shall love thy neighbor as thyself. Does God command us to love Him? And the answer is yes.

I read to you a number of verses, quoted some of them, but listen. In Deuteronomy 6 and verse 5, Deuteronomy 11 verse 1, again God commands us to love Him. Now, that command to love Him is repeated five times just in the book of Deuteronomy alone. So when God says we are to love our wives or our neighbors or we're to love God, God is not commanding feelings or sentiments or abstract concepts or ethereal desires. What he is doing is he is commanding the will. This is what I am commanding you. Now, when God says husbands love your wives. I love my wife. Because I choose to love my wife. I do.

Stop and think about that. There's no such thing in reality as falling in love and falling out of love. No, you choose to love. I love my wife because I choose to love my wife. I love my neighbor because I choose to love my neighbor. I love my God because I choose to love him since he worked in my heart. Love is an act of the will. It is a choice. It is a determination.

Now, I want you to understand. When I say I've chosen to love my wife, it also means I have willed to love my wife. Now, are there emotions involved in that in the answers? Yes. She does make me happy, she pleases me, she satisfies me, I wish to be with her, I wish to have her around me. And I have people every now and then they'll They'll ask me when I'm coming to a meeting and something, they'll ask, well is your wife coming? And I just laugh and I say, yes.

I take her everywhere with me. I want her with me. I never will forget one of my dearest friends used to hunt coons. And I asked him one night, I said, Randall, why do you hunt coons? I said, You don't eat them, you can't sell them, and you have to stay out all night chasing them. Why do you hunt them?" He said, well, he said, I like to just be with my friends and I like to hear the dogs bark. I said, let me tell you something. I said, I'd much rather be with my wife than with a bunch of men out in the woods listening to dogs.

Now, I mean, I'm not cutting coon hunting. I'm just saying for me, no, no, I choose to be with her. Now, I wish to be around her and I refuse to forsake her. Now, watch this. There may be plenty of other women. They may be more beautiful women. They may be more. Handsome women, whatever you want to call, but I choose not to be with them, and I choose not to be around them, and I will not to be around them. You see what I'm saying? Love is an act of the will.

My choice and my will in loving my wife, there is always a positive and a negative connotation attached with that. And you're going to see this in relationship to God and in relationship to neighbors as well. So also, if I choose to love the brethren and I choose to love my neighbors myself, which the Father has commanded me to do, the command is therefore to my will. Do I have affections toward the brethren? Yes. I enjoy being around them. But these are the effects or the results of my love. God commands the will. You've got to remember, there are always positives and negative connotations to our love. So here's what it means. If I choose to love the brethren as God commands me, that means I prefer them above any others. Let me go a little bit farther. I've had people tell me, Brother Weaver, you may not understand this, but I'd rather be around my church family than my own physical family. And I say, well, yes, I do understand that. And especially if your physical family happened to be wicked or ungodly and unconverted. And I'll tell you what, I'd much rather be around people of like mind than I had to be around a physical relative who could care less about Jesus Christ and the Word of God and the truth of God. I understand that. But when I choose to love the brethren, that means this.

I'm going to protect them. I'm going to promote them. Are you listening? And it means I will never betray them to the enemies of God. You stop and think. When the Covenanters were meeting in the fields, and the king's troops came for the pastor, and they knew it would be instant and immediate death. There were men who would step forward and claim to be the pastor, and they would be immediately killed. And they stepped forward in order to protect their pastor so that the pastor could keep preaching the Word of God.

In the average church today, the average church member would sell his preacher down the drain for a $100 bill. I'm serious. There is no understanding of this simple fact. If we love the brethren, we are not to betray them to their enemies or the enemies of God. What did David say? I quoted it this morning in Psalm 139. He said, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? Am I not grieved with those that rise up against Thee? He said, I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies. We cannot love the brethren the way we are commanded to love them without at the same time despising and detesting that which would destroy the brethren. And you need to make up in your mind that if you're going to love the brethren, you're going to be faithful and true. It may cost you.

But if you love them as Christ loved them, You'd be willing to give yourself for them. What did he say? He laid down his life. We also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. So there is to be a holy determination in loving our wives. There's to be a holy determination in loving our brethren. There's also be to be a holy determination in loving the Lord. And we have to understand that we have chosen Him as our Lord and Savior only by His grace. Yes, I have chosen Him, but He worked in me, through me, and drew me to Himself, and I willed to come to Him only because He loosed my will from its bondage to sin, and He renewed my will and gave me grace and mercy that I might come to Him. And when I came, I did come willingly. but only because of His grace. So when I say now that I'm loving the Lord, I'm expressing a holy determination in my life to bring the entirety of my life into conformity to His Word, to obey Him, to submit to Him, to honor Him, and worship Him and praise Him.

Now watch this. David said, I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength. That's a holy determination. That is the positive. Here's the negative. When David says, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength, and when you and I say, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength, what we are saying negatively is that we reject any and everything that is contrary to Him. I must hate, I must despise, and I must reject all sin, no matter how appealing to my flesh it may be. I must love His Word, and I must love His will above any and all of my fleshly lusts and fleshly desires. A holy determination to love the Lord is what enables one to overcome sin, Satan, and the world.

Do you remember what he said in 1 John 2, verses 15 through 17? Listen carefully. Our Lord said, Love not the world. Neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." Love not the world. Neither the things that are in the world. So if I'm going to say, With a holy determination, positively, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. At the same time, negatively, I'm going to say I'm not going to love or I will hate any and everything that is contrary to Him, His Word, and His will.

Love as an Act of the Will Illustrated

Weaver illustrates with marriage and family that love is a willed choice, not merely emotion, and applies this to loving God and brethren.

It is true in relationship to our God. It is also true in relationship to others. Years ago, I had a man come into my office for counseling. And the interesting thing is when most people come for counseling, they really and truly do not want counseling. What they want is for you to put your stamp of approval upon what they've already determined to do. That's what they really genuinely want. Well, this man had determined he was going to divorce his wife.

Now, there was no biblical reason for him to do so. He just wanted to get rid of her. So I told him, I said, Sir, the scripture says the husbands are to love their wives. I said, God requires you and God commands you and you're obligated to love your wife. He said, well, I just don't love her. I said, well, let me ask you, is she still living in the house with you? Well, he said, yes. I said, would you say, then, that she is your closest neighbor, since no one else lives in the house with you? Well, he said, I guess so. I said, well, that's wonderful, because God says that you're to love your neighbors yourself. Well, he said, I don't even know that I could love her as a neighbor. I said, you don't.

I said, would you counter an enemy? He said, of course. Yes, she's an enemy. I said, great. The scripture says, love your enemies. I said, you can't get out of it. I don't care if she's your neighbor. I don't care if she's an enemy. She's still your wife, and God commands you to love her. Have you ever stopped and asked yourself this question? What in the world is happening between men and women?

Some have been married 30 and 40 years, and they're getting divorces. I never will forget hearing years ago about an old man. He was 92. The woman was 90. They were standing before the judge, and they were getting a divorce. And the judge looks at them and he says, you're 92 and your wife's 90 and you've been married 75 years and you're getting a divorce. Why? Well, the old man said, well, we wanted a divorce years ago, but we decided that we would stay together for our children's sake. And our baby, who is 65, just got married last month, and we want to get our divorce. Well, you understand, the truth of the matter, if you live together with somebody that long, it seems to me that you could make it a few more years. But why is it there's so many divorces?

And the answer is this. Because we have never really understood that love, first of all, is an act of the will and is something that we choose to do. And it's something that we must do on an absolute daily basis. So when God commands us to love, He's commanding our wills.

Now, it is true that oftentimes there are emotions evolved, but these emotions may follow, but they're never to lead. Let me try to give you an illustration. I want you to keep in mind that we love Him because He first loved us. And I want you to consider David's determination when David said, I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength. We must remember that first and foremost that love is an act of the will.

Now, does God command husbands to love their wives? Yes. Ephesians 5, verse 25. Husbands, love your wives. That's a command. Do you realize that God is not commanding feelings? He is commanding your will. Here is something that you are required to do by the command of God. You don't command feelings. You don't command emotions. You command the will. Does God command us to love our neighbor? And the answer is yes. In Leviticus chapter 19, he said, Thou shalt not suffer sin upon thy neighbor. Thou shalt rebuke him in any wise. When you get to James 2 and verse 8, he says, If you fulfill the royal law, you shall love thy neighbor as thyself. Does God command us to love Him? And the answer is yes.

I read to you a number of verses, quoted some of them, but listen. In Deuteronomy 6 and verse 5, Deuteronomy 11 verse 1, again God commands us to love Him. Now, that command to love Him is repeated five times just in the book of Deuteronomy alone. So when God says we are to love our wives or our neighbors or we're to love God, God is not commanding feelings or sentiments or abstract concepts or ethereal desires. What he is doing is he is commanding the will. This is what I am commanding you. Now, when God says husbands love your wives. I love my wife. Because I choose to love my wife. I do.

Stop and think about that. There's no such thing in reality as falling in love and falling out of love. No, you choose to love. I love my wife because I choose to love my wife. I love my neighbor because I choose to love my neighbor. I love my God because I choose to love him since he worked in my heart. Love is an act of the will. It is a choice. It is a determination.

Now, I want you to understand. When I say I've chosen to love my wife, it also means I have willed to love my wife. Now, are there emotions involved in that in the answers? Yes. She does make me happy, she pleases me, she satisfies me, I wish to be with her, I wish to have her around me. And I have people every now and then they'll They'll ask me when I'm coming to a meeting and something, they'll ask, well is your wife coming? And I just laugh and I say, yes.

I take her everywhere with me. I want her with me. I never will forget one of my dearest friends used to hunt coons. And I asked him one night, I said, Randall, why do you hunt coons? I said, You don't eat them, you can't sell them, and you have to stay out all night chasing them. Why do you hunt them?" He said, well, he said, I like to just be with my friends and I like to hear the dogs bark. I said, let me tell you something. I said, I'd much rather be with my wife than with a bunch of men out in the woods listening to dogs.

Now, I mean, I'm not cutting coon hunting. I'm just saying for me, no, no, I choose to be with her. Now, I wish to be around her and I refuse to forsake her. Now, watch this. There may be plenty of other women. They may be more beautiful women. They may be more. Handsome women, whatever you want to call, but I choose not to be with them, and I choose not to be around them, and I will not to be around them. You see what I'm saying? Love is an act of the will.

My choice and my will in loving my wife, there is always a positive and a negative connotation attached with that. And you're going to see this in relationship to God and in relationship to neighbors as well. So also, if I choose to love the brethren and I choose to love my neighbors myself, which the Father has commanded me to do, the command is therefore to my will. Do I have affections toward the brethren? Yes. I enjoy being around them. But these are the effects or the results of my love. God commands the will. You've got to remember, there are always positives and negative connotations to our love. So here's what it means. If I choose to love the brethren as God commands me, that means I prefer them above any others. Let me go a little bit farther. I've had people tell me, Brother Weaver, you may not understand this, but I'd rather be around my church family than my own physical family. And I say, well, yes, I do understand that. And especially if your physical family happened to be wicked or ungodly and unconverted. And I'll tell you what, I'd much rather be around people of like mind than I had to be around a physical relative who could care less about Jesus Christ and the Word of God and the truth of God. I understand that. But when I choose to love the brethren, that means this.

I'm going to protect them. I'm going to promote them. Are you listening? And it means I will never betray them to the enemies of God. You stop and think. When the Covenanters were meeting in the fields, and the king's troops came for the pastor, and they knew it would be instant and immediate death. There were men who would step forward and claim to be the pastor, and they would be immediately killed. And they stepped forward in order to protect their pastor so that the pastor could keep preaching the Word of God.

In the average church today, the average church member would sell his preacher down the drain for a $100 bill. I'm serious. There is no understanding of this simple fact. If we love the brethren, we are not to betray them to their enemies or the enemies of God. What did David say? I quoted it this morning in Psalm 139. He said, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? Am I not grieved with those that rise up against Thee? He said, I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies. We cannot love the brethren the way we are commanded to love them without at the same time despising and detesting that which would destroy the brethren. And you need to make up in your mind that if you're going to love the brethren, you're going to be faithful and true. It may cost you.

But if you love them as Christ loved them, You'd be willing to give yourself for them. What did he say? He laid down his life. We also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. So there is to be a holy determination in loving our wives. There's to be a holy determination in loving our brethren. There's also be to be a holy determination in loving the Lord. And we have to understand that we have chosen Him as our Lord and Savior only by His grace. Yes, I have chosen Him, but He worked in me, through me, and drew me to Himself, and I willed to come to Him only because He loosed my will from its bondage to sin, and He renewed my will and gave me grace and mercy that I might come to Him. And when I came, I did come willingly. but only because of His grace. So when I say now that I'm loving the Lord, I'm expressing a holy determination in my life to bring the entirety of my life into conformity to His Word, to obey Him, to submit to Him, to honor Him, and worship Him and praise Him.

Second Prerequisite: A Holy Delineation

From Psalm 116:1, David lists reasons for loving God—His person, answered prayer, deliverance, and provisions—which believers should rehearse.

Now I want you to hold Psalm 18, but I want you to turn to Psalm 116 and look at verse 1. Because there's not only a holy determination, there is also secondly a holy delineation. I will explain that. David said in verse 1 of Psalm 116, I love the Lord because, and you could stop right there and preach all night long. He said, I love the Lord because he had heard my voice and my supplication. Now, in Psalm 116, like Psalm 18, David delineates a number of reasons why he should love the Lord. In fact, if you look back at Psalm 18, right before we go to Psalm 116, David tells us something in Psalm 18 as to why he says, I will love the Lord my strength. You see, God had just given David a great victory over King Saul and all of his enemies. So he says in verse 1, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. And look what he says. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation and my high tower.

I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, so shall I be saved from mine enemies." Now, I want you to note what he's saying. The Lord is my rock. He's my hiding place. He's my fortress. He's my place of defense. He's my deliverer. He's my God. He's my strength. He's my trust. He's my buckler. He's the horn of my salvation. In other words, what David is saying is, Lord, You have delivered me from my mortal enemies. And do you realize that God has basically done the same thing for us?

I'm going to talk about this in a moment. Do you realize that God has delivered us so many times and we're absolutely, totally oblivious of His deliverance? God constantly and consistently overthrows the schemes of the wicked. He foils their plans. He causes them to fall in the pit which they have digged for the righteous. He delivers us from sin and Satan and the world. And we need to acknowledge that deliverance.

That's why the Bible says in Proverbs 18 verse 10, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it and is saved. But the point I'm trying to make is this, in the not too distant future, things get a whole lot rougher and worse for the people of God. We may need Psalm 18 more than you ever imagined. But if you look in Psalm 116, David now begins to delineate a list as to why he loves the Lord. He says, I love the Lord because. Now. Have you ever stopped to think about this? What David is doing in Psalm 18 and Psalm 116 is he is indeed listing reasons why he loves the Lord and he is rehearsing them. Do you realize that we need to do the same thing? We need to rehearse these things daily, sometimes hourly.

Now, although there is a number of reasons why we should love the Lord, we must understand that the main reason for loving our Heavenly Father is the excellency of His nature, the majesty of His person, the greatness of His throne, the purity of His attributes, the holiness of His character, and the magnanimous mercy that He's demonstrated in providing for us His only begotten Son. In other words, the real reason to love the Lord is just simply because He is God. He's infinitely holy and infinitely righteous. We must learn to focus first and foremost upon His person, and only secondly, upon His provisions. Probably everyone in this room can quote the Lord's Prayer. In Luke 11, verses 2 through 4, our Lord taught us to pray, and He said, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who are indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Now, I want you to remember something. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. What did our Lord teach us to do? He taught us first and foremost to focus upon God and His person, His will, and His kingdom. And only secondly, upon our needs and our provisions.

Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with being thankful and delineating all the blessings and gracious provisions that God has bestowed upon us. You remember that passage in Luke chapter 17, when ten lepers came and they said, help, Lord. And he said, what do you want? Well, we want to be cleansed. Well, he said, you go show yourself to the priest. And as they went, they were cleansed. And one turned around and came back and knelt before our Lord and thanked Him. And our Lord asked, Where are the nine? Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Do you realize one of our problems is God blesses us so much, so often, we refuse to thank Him and praise Him. But here's the point.

Our focus must first of all be upon the giver more than the gifts. It is the giver who makes the gifts beneficial. If I were to ask you, can God give the gift of rain? The answer is yes. And he can send a rain that will be extremely beneficial. But he can also send one to be extremely destructive. So it's the giver who makes all of his gifts beneficial.

Now, the increase of our love and our filial obedience should be in proportion to the increased sense of our thankfulness and our obligation to Him. In other words, we love Him, not only for His person, but for what He does give us, what He has bestowed upon us. In other words, we understand that He has bestowed these gifts upon us because God is love. And therefore, love should beget love. I want you to see that there are practical reasons to love the Lord. Look what David said in Psalm 116 at verses 1 and 2. He said, I love the Lord because he had heard my voice in my supplications, because he's inclined his ear unto me. Therefore, will I call upon him as long as I live? Now, David vows to continue in prayer because the Lord heard him. He has experienced the blessings of answered prayer and he believes that God is to be loved because of his goodness in hearing and answering prayer. Has God ever answered your prayer? Have you ever cried to God in an extreme emergency and God heard you and God answered you? This is exactly what David is saying. I will love the Lord. Why? Because he's heard my voice and my supplication. He inclined his ear to me.

Reasons to Love God

God is to be loved for His excellency, answered prayer, providential deliverance, and bountiful provisions, leading to grateful worship.

Probably everyone in this room can quote the Lord's Prayer. In Luke 11, verses 2 through 4, our Lord taught us to pray, and He said, Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who are indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Now, I want you to remember something. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. What did our Lord teach us to do? He taught us first and foremost to focus upon God and His person, His will, and His kingdom. And only secondly, upon our needs and our provisions.

Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with being thankful and delineating all the blessings and gracious provisions that God has bestowed upon us. You remember that passage in Luke chapter 17, when ten lepers came and they said, help, Lord. And he said, what do you want? Well, we want to be cleansed. Well, he said, you go show yourself to the priest. And as they went, they were cleansed. And one turned around and came back and knelt before our Lord and thanked Him. And our Lord asked, Where are the nine? Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Do you realize one of our problems is God blesses us so much, so often, we refuse to thank Him and praise Him. But here's the point.

Our focus must first of all be upon the giver more than the gifts. It is the giver who makes the gifts beneficial. If I were to ask you, can God give the gift of rain? The answer is yes. And he can send a rain that will be extremely beneficial. But he can also send one to be extremely destructive. So it's the giver who makes all of his gifts beneficial.

Now, the increase of our love and our filial obedience should be in proportion to the increased sense of our thankfulness and our obligation to Him. In other words, we love Him, not only for His person, but for what He does give us, what He has bestowed upon us. In other words, we understand that He has bestowed these gifts upon us because God is love. And therefore, love should beget love. I want you to see that there are practical reasons to love the Lord. Look what David said in Psalm 116 at verses 1 and 2. He said, I love the Lord because he had heard my voice in my supplications, because he's inclined his ear unto me. Therefore, will I call upon him as long as I live? Now, David vows to continue in prayer because the Lord heard him. He has experienced the blessings of answered prayer and he believes that God is to be loved because of his goodness in hearing and answering prayer. Has God ever answered your prayer? Have you ever cried to God in an extreme emergency and God heard you and God answered you? This is exactly what David is saying. I will love the Lord. Why? Because he's heard my voice and my supplication. He inclined his ear to me.

That is, he listened to me. He heard me. And therefore, I'm going to call upon him as long as I live. I'll never forget what God has done for me. Secondly, I want you to note that God is to be loved because of his providential deliverance. Look in verses three through six. He says, the sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple.

I was brought low, and he helped me. Now, I want you to know Here is God's providential deliverance. God has delivered us, and it should provoke us to love him dearly. He's delivered us not only spiritually, but physically as well. Have you ever stopped to think of all the times that God has delivered you, even without your knowledge? There are times that, yes, we know that God has delivered us. Alice and I were coming home from a meeting in Alabama not too long ago, and we were on a back road, and there was not a car on the back road, and we were doing the speed limit, I mean just sailing down that road, and up ahead was a crossroads. And just right before we got to that crossroad, a car ran the stop sign. I bet he was doing 80 or 90 miles an hour. I just stopped. I slowed down. I said, do you realize if we had not stopped just a few minutes up the road, we'd have probably been right in the path of that car. And when we got to the crossroad, I looked to the right and about 200 yards down there, the man was pulled over out of the car, evidently scared him, too.

Now, I know that God delivered me there. I understand that. But have you ever stopped to think about the fact that God has delivered us so many times, and we don't even know about it? For instance, why did you not die last night? Why were you able to awaken this morning? The Bible teaches in Lamentations 3, it is, verses 22 and 23, it is of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. Because His compassions, they fail not. They're new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. Listen to that. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. Because thy compassions, they fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The reason we did not die last night was because of God's compassions and God's mercies. And He gives them to us fresh every day. He sustains us. He preserves us. If God did not sovereignly and graciously provide for us mercies and compassions on a daily basis, we would not make it through one day or one night.

He's been faithful in preserving and sustaining our lives. I could give you illustration after illustration how God has preserved my life. But he's probably done so so many times that I don't even know about it. just like this. So David says, here's a reason to praise God. Thirdly, if you look in verses 7-9, David delineates the bountiful provisions of God as a reason to love Him and walk before Him. Notice in verse 7, he says, Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. Thou hast delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. Now let me ask you, has God dealt bountifully with you? Just stop and think. Has he fed you? Has he nourished you? Has he sustained you?

Has he supplied your needs? Has he kept you alive? Has he dried your tears and brought you through what you would call impossible situations? Has he kept you from falling into sin and wickedness? Has he given you life and has he given you help? Has he given you family and friends? Has he given you breath? Has he given you abilities and gifts and graces? Well, the question is, if God has given you all of these things, why do you not love Him more? Why do you not sit down and take a piece of paper and begin to delineate all of the things that God has done for you?

Why do you not live more holily and more righteously and more godly before Him? Why do you not walk more obediently? If God has done all of these things for you, Do you tell him on a daily basis that you love him? And do you evidence that love by obedience in your life? Why do you not determine to be more holy, more godly, more obedient? Why do you not say with David, I will love the Lord my strength? Have you ever thought What an absolutely great goodness it is on the part of God to condescend, be loved by poor, sinful creatures as we are. Have you ever stopped to think about, have you ever stopped to think that God does not need our love?

Expressing Love to God

Believers should frequently tell God they love Him, as Peter did in John 21, and evidence love through praise and obedience.

He is the all-sufficient One. He is the eternal, almighty, magnificent, sovereign God of heaven and earth. There are no needs in God. God does not need our love. He does not need anything. But yet He wants our love. He commands us to love Him. Have you ever stopped to think What a mind-bending blessing it is just to stop and think that by His grace and by His mercy we are enabled to love the altogether lovely One, the eternal God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. That God would humble Himself and condescend to be loved by us. How honored we should be And at the same time, how humbled we should be that our great God and Father has granted to us grace to love Him.

By nature, we hated Him. And if we were left to ourselves, we would still be at enmity with Him. But He did not leave us to ourselves. And I think one of the biggest problems that you and I have Many times, it's although we think we love the Lord, and we probably do. We just fail to tell him that we love him. I tell Alice every day that I love her. Sometimes several times a day. I tell the Lord every day that I love Him. Sometimes, many times, I quote Psalm 18, verse 1 so frequently, I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength. And I will say I will to love Thee. I choose to love Thee. I want to love Thee. I do love Thee by Thy grace and by Thy mercy. I want to ask that you turn in your Bibles to John 21.

Let me show you a passage that everyone is familiar with. But look how applicable it is to this message. Look in John 21. You know the story how Peter has cursed and denied the Lord. Three times he denied him. And in John 21 and verse 15, So when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He said unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He said unto him, Feed my sheep. Now watch verse 17. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, Son of Jonas, lovest thou me?

The third time Peter appealed to our Lord's omniscience. He said, Lord, Thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love Thee. I know our heavenly Father is omniscient. But I want Him to hear my voice. every day saying, I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength. I do love Thee, O Lord. What a wonderful blessing it is to love the Lord and depend totally and completely upon Him. To have an intimate fellowship in the sense that I can tell my heavenly Father I love Him just like I can tell my wife I love her. All the grandfathers in here will know what I'm talking about. One of the greatest joys of being a grandpa is when those grandkids come and sit on your lap and snuggle up to you and say, I love you, Grandpa. It just turns your heart.

My oldest granddaughter is 24. When she was two years old, I was on a horse and I had her in front of me. And at two, she could talk up a storm. In fact, she started and she's never stopped. And she's a tiny little thing. And she talks like a machine gun, you know. And I have to tell her, I said, sweetheart, I cannot hear as fast as you talk. So slow down, you know. But I had her on the horse and we had not said a word for I don't know how long.

And all of a sudden she looked at me and she said, Papa, you're my very best friend. And I can call her on the phone today or she'll call me and the first question we ask each other, is this my very best friend? I've never forgotten it. I love to hear it. I love to hear it from my children. I've got three grandsons. Two of them are married. Do you know they'll still come sit in my lap and hug my neck and kiss me on the cheek and tell me they love me?

I don't care if they're 24, 22. They still do that. If it thrills my heart for my children and my grandchildren to tell me that they love me, how much more should it thrill the heart of our Heavenly Father when in His grace and His mercy We can look to Him and say, by that grace and that mercy, I have been enabled to love Thee. I love Thee, O Lord, my strength. I want you to very quickly look back in your Bibles to Psalm 116. Let me make just a couple of applications. Look in Psalm 116. The first application is this. Every believer, without the slightest hesitation, should confess I love the Lord. Immediately after that confession, we should say it something like this. I love the Lord because and then begin delineate. He is the sovereign. He is almighty. He is the God. He is infinitely holy and pure. And because he is turned my heart to him, he's quickened my spirit. He's given me grace and he's given me life and health.

In other words, there should be a multitude of reasons flowing from our hearts. as to why we love him. I want you to note in Psalm 116 that a truly grateful heart will be evidenced by acts of worship, praise and adoration. Look in Psalm 116 and begin there reading with verse 12. What shall I render unto the Lord for all of His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all His people. What shall I render unto the Lord for all of His benefits toward me?

What am I going to do? Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to praise Him. I'm going to worship Him. I'm going to honor Him. I'm going to acknowledge that I love Him. Skip down to verse 16. Look what he says. O Lord, truly I am thy servant. I am thy servant. and the son of thine handmaid.

Now I salute my bonds. I will offer thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows in the Lord now in the presence of all his people in the courts of the Lord's house in the midst of the old Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord. If we truly love the Lord, we are going to have a heart full of praise and worship and honor for Him. The profession of our love and acknowledgement of God's mercies and grace, the recognition of the greatness and consistency of His deliverances should make us walk more holily, pray more fervently, obey more carefully, worship more frequently, be more studious in His Word, and make us more grateful and thankful individuals. So, here's my question. Do you love the Lord? Do you love our Heavenly Father? And you answer, yes. My next question is, have you told Him that you love Him? How frequently Do you express your love to Him?

Application and Conclusion

Weaver calls for a holy determination and delineation, urging believers to confess love to God daily and live obediently.

I don't care if they're 24, 22. They still do that. If it thrills my heart for my children and my grandchildren to tell me that they love me, how much more should it thrill the heart of our Heavenly Father when in His grace and His mercy We can look to Him and say, by that grace and that mercy, I have been enabled to love Thee. I love Thee, O Lord, my strength. I want you to very quickly look back in your Bibles to Psalm 116. Let me make just a couple of applications. Look in Psalm 116. The first application is this. Every believer, without the slightest hesitation, should confess I love the Lord. Immediately after that confession, we should say it something like this. I love the Lord because and then begin delineate. He is the sovereign. He is almighty. He is the God. He is infinitely holy and pure. And because he is turned my heart to him, he's quickened my spirit. He's given me grace and he's given me life and health.

In other words, there should be a multitude of reasons flowing from our hearts. as to why we love him. I want you to note in Psalm 116 that a truly grateful heart will be evidenced by acts of worship, praise and adoration. Look in Psalm 116 and begin there reading with verse 12. What shall I render unto the Lord for all of His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all His people. What shall I render unto the Lord for all of His benefits toward me?

What am I going to do? Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to praise Him. I'm going to worship Him. I'm going to honor Him. I'm going to acknowledge that I love Him. Skip down to verse 16. Look what he says. O Lord, truly I am thy servant. I am thy servant. and the son of thine handmaid.

Now I salute my bonds. I will offer thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows in the Lord now in the presence of all his people in the courts of the Lord's house in the midst of the old Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord. If we truly love the Lord, we are going to have a heart full of praise and worship and honor for Him. The profession of our love and acknowledgement of God's mercies and grace, the recognition of the greatness and consistency of His deliverances should make us walk more holily, pray more fervently, obey more carefully, worship more frequently, be more studious in His Word, and make us more grateful and thankful individuals. So, here's my question. Do you love the Lord? Do you love our Heavenly Father? And you answer, yes. My next question is, have you told Him that you love Him? How frequently Do you express your love to Him?

I know that God knows everything, but I'm like David. David said three times a day he shall hear my voice. I want him to hear my voice saying, I love thee, O Lord, my strength. In Psalm 50 and verse 23, the Scripture says this, Whoso offereth praise glorifyeth me." Do you want to glorify God? Well, give Him the praise for everything that He's done for you and tell Him that you love Him for who He is and what He has done and what He is doing. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. I love the Lord because... Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we bow to Thee this day and we pray that You would indeed give us a holy determination, Lord, to love Thee. And You would give us a holy delineation in our lives that we can sit down and list and think of all the reasons why we should love Thee and make us, Father, more obedient and more holy and more loving to Thee. Give us a practical Obedient love.

In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray, Amen.