The Christian life - The..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Very good brothers and sisters. As I said, we're going to continue with our series of Bible studies.

This time we're going to be addressing the topic of prayer, and I'm going to call your attention, as I said, to the book of Jude chapter one verses 20 and 21. We're going to be reading those verses, and we're going to try to understand the topic of a teaching of prayer. from what the verse says there, those two verses 20 and 21. As I said, when we're speaking about prayer, there are so many things that we could have said of verses and portions of Scripture that we could have chosen. But I hope that the Lord may help us and empower us in prayer as I try to explain to you the truths that are contained here in verses 20 and 21.

So if we come before the Lord and read this in faith, beloved of Christ, let's read it together. Verses 20 and 21 of the letter of Jude chapter one. And it says, By you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God. waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

And then you have there the topic of prayer stated in the last statement of verse 20, where it says, praying in the Holy Spirit. And that is the topic that we're going to be addressing tonight, the topic of prayer or better praying in the Holy Spirit. But before we get into that, brothers and sisters, I could not speak more highly of the importance of this series of Bible studies that we're doing all together. Every time that we come on a Thursday night by the grace of the Lord and by the providence of our Lord, and we're trying to bring to you a truth from a practical point or a practical topic, The idea is that each one of us will hear the truth that we are trying, to the best of our limited ability, to bring from the Scriptures so that you will be confronted with that which the Scripture says and the reality of that practical topic in your life. And that by the power of the Spirit and the love to the Lord Jesus Christ, you will desire to close the gap if there is such a gap between what Scripture says and that which is found in your heart.

If that is not the goal, the intention or the desire of our heart when we're coming not only here on Thursday, but on the Lord's Day, then we are just simply wasting our time or you are wasting your time, if that is the attitude of your heart. We are to come every time that we hear the Word of God and the truth of Scripture, to receive those words as they are the Word of God, and then to compare the substance of our heart and the truth of our heart, and then by the help of the Spirit and the love of Christ, Asking our Savior so that whatever gap there might be between those two might be closed so that we will walk according to the truth that is written. That's why we started speaking about genuine or biblical salvation. We move on to biblical assurance. After that, we spoke about the life in the Spirit.

After that, we spoke about the power and the sufficiency of the Scriptures. And as we are progressing from salvation, through all of these topics in Scripture. Now we move and get into this very important topic that we have here, this topic of prayer or secret prayer. We call it secret prayer because it's the prayer of the individual. We're still speaking about the life of the individual.

We're gonna be speaking about the life of the church, but now we're addressing the secret moment of prayer that each one of you, by God's grace, if you are in Christ, will be given as a privilege by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can share that time, that communion with the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking as our brother said, speaking, communicating with the Lord, receiving illumination from the Lord, being encouraged and empowered in that secret place of prayer. I even think that there is a song that says the sweet hour of prayer or something like this. Perhaps there's a hymn that speaks of the sweet hour of prayer. Beloved of Christ, I really hope and desire that our secret place indeed may be sweet, not burdensome.

not as something that we need to do to tick a box or something that we don't even do, but rather that that secret place may be indeed sweet. And that arriving to that secret place of prayer might not be a duty or a burden or something that we are supposed to do, but we don't desire to do, but rather that we are so looking forward to that moment of the secret prayer. that we glorify God in that very secret place where no one sees. That is what we're going to be talking about, the individual moment of prayer. And someone said, beloved of Christ, that you are not going to be greater than your prayer life.

As a Christian, you're not going to be greater than your prayer life. And you know, I don't have to know your secret life. You know, as I'm speaking, you know what your secret life of prayer is. You're not greater than that. As a Christian, walking in the Spirit, walking in the faith, as a Christian, you're not greater than your secret time of prayer.

I'm not speaking about the prayer when we come together and we pray as a church. That counts, of course, and it's very important. I'm not speaking about family devotions or family worship when we come together and we pray. I'm talking about the secret place of individual prayer in which you are supposed to be drawn by the beauty of Christ and by the presence of His glory and the gospel of Jesus Christ, that moment. defines the substance of your Christianity and you are not greater than that particular moment.

So let your conscience testify to you where you are. And based on that, open your ears so that what the things that we say from Scripture may indeed empower you and guide you, beloved of Christ, to that particular secret moment of prayer. The purpose of this whole thing is precisely that. is to empower you, to empower you to that moment of prayer. Because as we have just said there in the outline that we sent, your flesh is weak.

Yes, your spirit is willing because the Spirit of Christ now is indwelling you and the Spirit of Christ is moving you to things that give glory to the Savior. But beloved of Christ, our flesh is still weak. And because our flesh is still weak and there is a battle between your flesh and the Spirit of Christ that is dwelling in you, we must be empowered in that secret moment of prayer. Now, think about that. If your Christianity is not greater than that secret moment of prayer, what can we say of the church?

The church will not be greater than the prayer life of each one of the individuals of that church and the prayer of that church. So, brothers and sisters, I could not stress how important it is for us that the realities of Scripture that pertain to the secret life of prayer, by His grace, they may be true. And I say, by His grace. Because apart from the divine working of God in your heart, moving you to this glorious spiritual discipline, you're going to hear my words tonight. You're going to be perhaps uncomfortable in your heart with certain things if you are not walking according to what is written that pertains to prayer.

And you will be bothered perhaps tonight and tomorrow, and then you will decide just to simply in the flesh, trying to do certain things so that you tick the box. But if it's not the Spirit of Christ, the one that is moving you to a consistent, devoted and ongoing life of prayer, I'm telling you that by Wednesday next week, or even just by Sunday, that would have been gone and disappeared. Because we cannot work in our own flesh the things that can only be produced by the Holy Spirit. We cannot hold the beauty of prayer. We cannot come before the tabernacle of the Lord and ascend the holy mountain in the flesh.

We cannot ascend and be in the presence of the Lord in the flesh because the flesh is weak. So, beloved of Christ, my desire is that we will be indeed empowered in this glorious discipline of prayer. Beloved of Christ, it's very important that we will be empowered because the standard of the New Testament is really high. The standard of the New Testament is that we will rejoice always and that we will pray without ceasing. that we will pray without ceasing that the heart of the Christian will be so devoted to the person of Jesus Christ that cannot escape the desire and the drawing of this place in which you commune secretly with the Lord.

Beloved, in which our affections, our desires, our thoughts, our minds are sometimes even secretly taken to that place and desire, when am I going to depart from the presence of these people so I can just be with you, Lord? that I can be in that secret place. When is this going to be finished? When I'm going to be removed from the presence of these people or the presence of whatever you're doing so that I can arrive there to that place and be with you, Lord? Whatever it is in your mind, in your heart, if there's a particular place, of course.

I'm not speaking about just a physical place, but the secret place of your heart, your mind, in which you only commune there with the Lord. The standard is the expectation of the Lord through the apostles is that the Christians will rejoice always and pray without ceasing." Praying at all times with much prayer and supplication, interceding for the saints, pray without ceasing. And let me tell you, beloved of Christ, that that is not only the expectation of the New Testament, but your prayer life, beloved, your prayer life speaks of your spiritual condition. Because prayer is not only speaking to God.

Prayer is not only opening our mouth and bringing a request and speaking about a particular matter. Prayer speaks of our living relationship with God. Think about the verse that I placed there in the outline in Hebrews 5, verse 10, onwards in 13 that speaks of what happened there in Gethsemane. You remember that in Gethsemane that the Lord knows what is going to take place. So He's afflicted in the spirit and He's going to pray and to supplicate before the Lord that He feeds the will of the Father that the cup may pass.

All the disciples were with Him and He said to them that they were supposed to watch and pray. And you remember that they fell asleep three times. Now, there in Hebrews chapter 5, the author of Hebrews speaks about the perfecting of the Son of God through much prayer and supplication. There in the Garden of Gethsemane, that He was perfected in obedience. When He was supplicating and when He was praying with much crying, that He was delivered from death.

God the Father indeed delivered him from death because he was powerfully resurrected. And because of the victory of Christ upon that cross, he became the fountain of eternal life for all of those who obeyed him. And then he became, in the eyes of God, the high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, my beloved of Christ. We have Jesus Christ, the One who knows what is going to take place, the One who knows that His life has been given for the sacrifice of the church. We have Jesus Christ, the One who knows that He's going to be resurrected, yet coming before the presence of the Father.

which cries and tears and supplications to ask before God the Father. Because prayer, beloved, it is a manifestation of our relationship with God. It is not a duty in which we open our mouth just simply to bring a request or just to intercede or to speak of the attributes of God. No, it is the manifestation of a spiritual reality that is in the heart. And that's why I'm telling you that Christians cannot develop an ongoing a diligent and a preserving life of prayer if it's not the work of the Holy Spirit.

I'm not telling you only on the authority of the Scripture, which is sufficient, but I'm just telling you from pure experience. You can never, ever develop a consistent, ongoing, devoted life of prayer if the words that you're hearing right now are only my words. It's only just my advice and my suggestion. The words that I'm preaching onto your heart have to be the words of Christ so that you will be brought into greater conformity of Him, not of the one who speaks. Imagine the Apostle Paul speaking to the Philippians and to the Colossians saying, that he never ceased to give thanks for what the Lord was doing in the life of the Philippians and the Colossians, namely the abundance of their faith and the abundance of the love.

He never ceased to pray. Why? Because the fulfillment of the law is love, and love cannot be produced in an honest strength. And the apostle loved so much the church that his love towards the saints was manifested in the secret place. Love is not only words, but love is meant to go beyond words.

And one of the places where genuine love towards our brothers and sisters is manifested is in the secret place of prayer. We can say to each other that we love very much. We can even do things for the other. You know, we can do favors to one another and provide for one another and all of those things are good and we are to abound in all of those things. Yet the biblical pure love to our brothers and sisters, it is initially manifested in the secret place of prayer in which we manifest that love towards their souls in the secret place where no one says.

You see there, I just have just said that we have a standard because today you have the opportunity to pray. And now as I'm speaking, your conscience testifies about how much you pray for me, about how much you pray for the saints, about how much you pray for brothers and sisters and for the church. That is already a fact today. That is the manifestation of our spiritual condition, beloved of Christ. And in the flesh, we cannot do it.

is very important, beloved of Christ, that we will be empowered to a Spirit-led, Spirit-driven, Scripture-based, Christ-glorifying, Father-honoring prayer, so that our lives will manifest the life of Christ, not ours, that we would die to self and that the community of the saints will walk in the Spirit collectively. Achieving all the glories that God has for the church, not because they are so powerful, but rather because they're so weak that every time they're driven to their knees to be in the presence of the Savior and that they're empowered to do that which is impossible for them to do. So how are we going to approach this topic tonight? How are we going to understand these things that we have here? How am I going to present to you, beloved of Christ, this Jude 1, verse 20 and 21?

What is going to be the approach? How are we going to understand the truth? Well, we are going to follow the principle that I have mentioned now to you a couple of times. Not a very good idea to wear this tonight. The principle that I have presented to you a couple of times, and that is, beloved of Christ, that the present practical spiritual realities for the Christian will never be in power apart from the divine illumination that God has or the purpose that God has for those things.

Again, That which is required of us presently will never have power if we are not illuminated into the divine purpose for those things. When the Christian is illuminated through the Scriptures for the purpose or the reason or the substance of something, then that something becomes powerful in the life of that Christian. And the example that I have presented to you is the example of Romans chapter 5 and James chapter 1 in which we speak about suffering. Suffering has absolutely no value in the flesh according to our own perception. We don't want to suffer.

We don't want to go through suffering and difficulties. Suffering only takes meaning and gains substance and power when we understand through the Scriptures the divine purpose for suffering. So count it all joy when you fall into various trials, completely opposed to our flesh, impossible for us to do. We cannot do it. But how are we going to count all things as joy when we fall into various trials?

Then the word, knowing. Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. The important word there is knowing. The Christian cannot count suffering as joy if the Christian has not been divinely illuminated into the divine purpose of that present reality.

So then when you understand, not with your mind, but with your heart, that suffering is testing your faith and bringing completion to your walk, then when suffering arrives, you will be able to do that by the power of the Spirit who has illuminated you into the divine purpose of suffering. Same thing happens with sovereignty and God's providence. Calvinists are very good at saying that God is sovereign and that He holds everything in His hands and that because He's sovereign, everything is under His control. Yet when adversity arrives, very easily we fill our hearts with anxiety as if God was not in control of the things that were taking place. Then that requires that God opens our eyes So that we will not only understand that God is completely sovereign over everything that happens and that He rules over everything, even if it's something that we do not like and do not enjoy and we do not want to have.

It only takes the illumination of the Spirit. For us to, through that difficulty or whatever it is, say, Lord, you're suffering, and when I should be suffering, I am feeling a little bit strange in the fact that this is not what I desired. But ultimately and spiritually, I'm resting in your hands. And then from there comes peace. That is the only way, beloved of Christ, that our life of prayer can be empowered.

Now, this task is impossible for me. And even as I'm just thinking what I'm going to say, I know that it's very impossible. And I know that not all of you may simply get in the same way what I'm just going to try to say. But if there is any one of us, one or two of us, that by God's grace is illuminated into the things that I want to share with you and that I have already shared with you there in the outlines, Then, beloved, I think that our life is going of prayer is going to be in power in the same way that when we suffer, we know that the testing of our faith is being happening in that particular moment. I said to you, many places I could have taken to speak to you about this topic of prayer.

I could have taken, you know, to Matthew, in which the Lord speaks about the Lord's prayer thing, you call it in English, and then just break that down and speak about how you should pray and so on and so on. There is no point in telling you how you should do things if your heart, spiritually speaking, will never arrive to the point in which you do it for the glory of God. There's absolutely no point. There's absolutely no point in pointing direction when we lack the reason and the reality of why we should do things. Direction, the path towards a place, it's only meaningful when the heart decides to arrive to the destination.

It is only meaningful when you have seen the point in which you want to be. And then the path now takes meaning and you want to endure and preserve to the path because you know where you're actually going. So my goal, beloved of Christ, now it is just to point you to the reason why the mountain, the glory of why we should pray so that from there we will be able to establish how are we going to pray and when are we going to pray. Those are the only three things that I want to do tonight. Just to tell you why.

That is the reason why. The substance. You know how he says, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. So we are going to pray. Knowing what?

What are we going to understand tonight? That is the reason why. And I hope that once we see that reason why, which is, I suppose, the main part of what I'm going to be saying tonight. Then after that, briefly, depending on how long I spend speaking about the why, we will address the how, which is also very important. And then we will speak about the when.

But I think it will make just simply more sense once we address the why we should pray, and how we should pray, and then the when, even though we already know. That is how we're going to do it. But before we get into that process of answering those three questions, I need to point your attention to the structure of the text. And even I try just to create a little thing to you just to point your eyes to how the text is structured, because sometimes my words will not put that in perspective. So if you have it there, you see that I did the little arrows and the little boxes there just to point you to the structure of the text.

So brothers and sisters, of course we're not going to take the text in the context in which it's given, but rather we're going to take the truth of it. And perhaps I might speak about what was the main intention of Jude there. But we're going to speak about the truth of it. So it's kind of like a topical thing. I'm not going to be expounding the text in its context, but just the truth of the text.

Now here, Jude is given a specific exhortation. Or you heard that I said a few times on Sunday, on the previous Sunday, and even the men's meeting, an imperative. So there's an imperative that is given to the church. These beloved are the Christians. And that imperative is that which is found there.

It says, keep yourselves in the love of God. It says, but you, beloved. Keep yourselves in the love of God. That is the main instruction. This is a command.

There's no option. There's a command that is given from God to the church through Jude. That is that we Christians are to keep ourselves in the love of God. That is the instruction. Now, as you can see, you can see that the phrases that are around this command are basically telling us, how are we going to keep in the love of God?

And what happens when we keep in the love of God? You can see there, I'm not explaining this very well, but you can see there that those verbs are with the ING. It says building and praying and waiting. All of those verbs are just simply describing the imperative that the apostle has given to the church. So he says, but you, beloved, building yourself up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.

Keep yourself in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. The ESV has an end in between building yourself up and praying, which is not in the Greek. It's just a way to connect those two statements. But it's rather building yourself up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep the commandment.

Keep. yourselves in the love of God. So if we were going to put this as a question, please just be with me because this is actually the most important part of this whole thing that I'm just going to try to do with you. If we were going to put this as a question, let's say that we're doing a catechism for the people of the church, and then we were going to ask the question, how can we Christians keep ourselves in the love of God? That is the question.

Then the answer to that is, We, Christians, keep ourselves in the love of God by building ourselves or building our most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. That will be the answer to how we keep in the love of God. Building yourself in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, is the requirement for us to keep and abide in the love of God. Now, when we think about that, build yourself up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, the requirement... I know that what I'm saying is actually boring and it's complicated, but it's very important, beloved of Christ, that you stay with me.

The requirement here is that you build yourself in your most holy faith. Actually, we were going to simplify the question. How can we keep ourselves in the love of God? The simplified answer to that is building ourselves up in our holy faith. But there's another question that comes there.

How do we build ourselves in our most holy faith? Praying in the Holy Spirit. So that praying in the Holy Spirit has a very important role there. Because praying in the Holy Spirit is that which is necessary for us to build ourselves up in our most holy faith. And building ourselves up in our most holy faith is that which allows us to be or abide or to keep ourselves in the love of God.

And then while we await for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, awaiting for the eschatological, the second coming, we're not going to be focusing on that part so much. But the previous part is very important. See the importance and the role of praying, and in this case, praying in the Holy Spirit. If a Christian does not pray, then that Christian is not going to be built up in their his or her most holy faith. And if there's no building up in our most holy faith, can we keep ourselves in the love of God?

No. We cannot keep ourselves in the love of God. So we are just going to try to go deeper into that, because the first question is, why should we pray? Why should we pray? One could say we should pray so that we are built up in our most holy faith.

Right. And that is that is correct. But there is an ultimate answer to why we should pray. And the reason why we should pray ultimately is that we would Keep ourselves in the love of God. Now, if by the help of the Spirit, I managed to show you the importance of keeping ourselves in the love of God.

Then I don't need to tell you to pray. You're going to desire to pray so that you will be built up in your most holy faith. Now, prayer, which is something that you do, will be moved by an internal reality. Because as you can see there in the text, all the actions that we're called to do, the only one that required an external thing that we do is praying. It says, building yourself up in your most holy faith, something spiritual that happens in the heart.

Right? Keeping yourself in the love of God is something spiritual that happens in our hearts, in our souls. Awaiting for the coming, awaiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life, referring to the second coming, is something that happens in the heart. Right? It's something that happens in our soul.

The only one of those that actually, it is externally manifested, not only in the heart, but externally manifested, is prayer. So that we pray in the Holy Spirit. And I cannot continue not showing you the Trinitarian glorious nature of those two verses, right? It says, building yourself up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

We have the Spirit there. We have God, which is God the Father, who is God the Father. And we have now the Lord Jesus Christ awaiting for that. So why should we pray? Why should we pray?

We should pray to keep ourselves in the love of God, simply as that. But we need to dig deeper into it and be illuminated by the words of God. I hope, I truly hope, so that we will see the glory of this, I think, and I hope that this is according to God's will. Now, beloved of Christ, as I said, this is a commandment. So feel the power and the strength of it.

yourself in the love of God. It is not a suggestion, but it is a command. It is an instruction. It's an expectation. Keep yourself in the love of God.

And when he says, keep yourself in the love of God, implicitly, there is a possibility of us not keeping ourselves in the love of God. That's why commandments are given in the New Testament, right? Or commandments are given in the New Testament because there is the possibility that the Christian might walk differently to the instruction that has been given from the mouth of God. So the instruction is that we will keep ourselves in the love of God. And that word keep, beloved, speaks of an environment and a sphere that you keep in a place.

And that place is the love of God. That word is used a couple of times there by Jude. And then you can see the sense and the importance of that word there in the letter. If you go to verse six, when he's speaking about the angels, he says, and the angels. You're there, verse six, and the angels who did not keep or he did not stay in their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling.

He speaks of allowing ourselves or abiding in a sphere or an environment. The angels did not keep their position or their own abode of authority. They left the place where they were supposed to be. They did not keep themselves. in the presence of God, because this keep is telling us to remain in a sphere like an environment.

And this is the love of God. That means that we can be in the love of God or we can fall from the love of God. That is continually the example continues when he's speaking about the false prophets there in verse 13. It says in verse 13, also speaking of the false prophets, wild waves of the sea casting out from form of their own shame. Wonder starts for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been kept forever or reserved forever.

There is a destination for the false teachers that is kept, that is reserved, that is darkness and gloom. This word keep, beloved of Christ, speaks to us of abiding and remaining in a sphere of action like an environment. I don't have any other word to speak of this. action, environment of the love of God, which we can be there. And then we can fall from it implicitly from the text because there is the commandment that we keep.

And of course, you see the tension of that. You see the difficulty of speaking that there is a possibility in which the Christian cannot keep themselves, her or himself, in the love of God. There is a difficulty there because the New Testament clearly speaks about our position that is unchanging, unmoving, and continually ongoing in the love of God. That is the verse that I gave you there, which is very famous, right? In Romans chapter 8, verses 28 and 29.

Who remembers that? 38 and 39. Let's just read it together, brother. Let's just get there. What can separate us from the love of God?

Nothing. Let's just read it together. The Apostle with the authority of the Spirit says, for I am sure For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things pressing, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation, that is not any other creature, nothing that has been created, will be able, not only presently, but will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Yet, Jude, in that verse, is mandating, is calling us, and exhorting us to keep ourselves in the love of God.

Yet the Bible very clearly with the authority of this with this period through the through the writing of tertiary and through the instruction of Paul in the letter of Romans, it says that nothing that has been created, including ourselves, can separate us from the love of God. Yet implicitly, once again, in Jude one, twenty and twenty one. We can remove ourselves from this fear, from the environment of the love of God. We can fold, in a sense, from the love of God. How are we going to understand that?

While the Bible does not only very clearly speak about our position, which is unchanging, and that will never absolutely change that we are united to the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, even is strengthened with our union with Christ. How are we going to understand? The Bible, as you have there in your notes, also speaks clearly of this possibility of us being moved into the presence of the love of God. So if you come with me there to 2 Thessalonians, I think is the verse. 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 5.

This is kind of like in the ending of these letters. They're in 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 5. Pay attention to the implicit direction of our hearts towards the love of God. It says, verse 5, may the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. You see the implicit meaning there that your hearts may not be directed there towards the love of God or be in the presence of the love of God.

That is the desire of the Apostle is that our hearts may be directed towards the love of God. Yes, the Bible speaks that we are united and in the presence of the love of God and that nothing can separate us from the love of God. But the Bible also clearly speaks about our experience of the love of God there in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 5. If you go to the 2 Corinthians, which is the other passage that I had there. 2 Corinthians chapter 13, which again is in the end, in the greeting, or in the final greetings.

It says, verse 14, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. The Spirit, through the Apostle, speaks of the desire that he has that these realities will be true. Right. So he says, I desire it. And I say, simplistically speaking, that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and that the love of God and that the fellowship of the spirit will be with you.

That is the desire of the apostle for the saints. The Bible, beloved of Christ, clearly speaks to us about the positional and changing objective reality of our belonging in and to and within the love of God, and that nothing can separate us from that love. But also, the Bible clearly speaks about an experiential, subjective, and let me tell you, changing experience of the manifestation of the love of God. Beloved of Christ, this is the most important thing that I just want to share with you tonight. It is that when we relate to the love of God, there's two ways in which we relate to the love of God.

One of them is objective and the other one is subjective. One is one that is positional and depends only on God. The other one is the one that depends on us in our subjective experience. One is the love of God that nothing will separate us because it is established in God Himself. The other one is our experience of the love of God to which Jude is calling us and mandating us and exhorting us to keep ourselves into.

The example that I gave you there so that you will understand that this is a biblical concept of understanding the objective aspect of something and the subjective aspect of something is the peace of God. Be with me. Don't be with the notes there, because perhaps just following these notes is not going to be very helpful. Be with me, please, beloved of Christ. This objective aspect of the peace of God and this subjective aspect of the peace of God.

Think about this. Romans chapter 5 verse 1 says that we have been justified by faith. Right? Because of faith we have been justified. And the fruit of that justification that is established upon the death of the Lord Jesus Christ is that we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is that before justification we were in enmity with God or to God. You use the word there. Before Jesus Christ, we were in enmity with God. But upon justification that happens by faith, of course, by grace. Now we are not in enmity anymore with God, but rather now we have peace with God.

The wrath of God is not upon us anymore. But rather, the lost sinner who has come to the person of Jesus Christ has made terms of eternal peace with eternal God. And now, objectively, objectively, the Christian has peace with God. but the peace of God or the peace with God or the divine peace is not only objective in the sense that we are not in enmity with God anymore, but it's also subjective and it's meant to be experienced. We are to live in the peace that surpasses all understanding.

And then in Philippians chapter four, the apostle calls us to be anxious for nothing. We're not to be anxious, right, for anything. We are not to fill our hearts with anxiety, but rather with much prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, we are to make known our request to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will keep our mind and our hearts through Jesus Christ. There is the experiential manifestation of the peace of God.

And then you can see that there is feelings involved. because it comes from anxiety to the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. Don't be anxious for anything. But with much prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, make your request. Whatever is in your mind that it is just afflicting you, whatever is in your mind that is making you anxious, bring it with prayer and supplication before the Lord so that the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will keep your mind and your heart through the person of Jesus Christ.

Does the Christian have an objective peace with God that no one is going to remove you from the peace that you have with God? Yes. But at the same time, we experience the peace of God. We experience that peace of God. And when we are anxious, and when we are lacking faith, are we experiencing the peace of God as a partial understanding?

No. We may be partakers of the objective peace because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that we have been justified. And the wrath of God will not be upon us. But at that particular moment, the mind and the heart of the Christian is filled with anxiety. And they can come and read about the peace of God and so, but he is not or she is not experiencing that because there is emotions.

and feelings involved. And I know that perhaps some people may be offended with the word emotions and feelings, but you cannot remove anxiety from something that is experienced in your heart and in your flesh, right? And then in contrast, the peace of God that surpasses an understanding is taking and removing all of that anxiety and changing that for peace that is not intellectually just understood, but that is experienced. And we have experience from anxiety, To peace. And that is the peace of God.

Same thing happened with the love of God. And I don't know if you knew this, but I saw this like three weeks ago, Beloved of Christ. And this has absolutely just changed my view of just coming into communion with the Lord. Because Beloved of Christ, yes, nothing can separate us from the love of God. We are positionally there in the love of God.

But many times of our failures and our weaknesses, many times we question, perhaps not with our minds, but the love that God has for us in the person of Jesus Christ. To the point that many times we do not experience, it sounds very difficult even just to say, the love that God has for us in His Son, Jesus Christ. Now, has the love of God changed for us? He has not. What changes is our subjective experience and realization that God loves us.

Beloved of Christ, and I don't know, and perhaps you know this better than me, or we can just simply think about it together, but there is no power where there is not not only substance and reality of love, but faithful acknowledgment of it. just as the person is so really and truly anxious when something is going on and they cannot experience the peace that they have with God, Same thing happens when a person who is loved by God because of Jesus Christ is not consciously and experientially aware of the glorious love that God indeed has for him or her through the person of Jesus Christ. That is not only to be understood as a doctrine abstract there that is away from me, but that is meant to be experienced. When a person experiences in truth and by faith the love of God, this is necessarily going to move us to power. Beloved, just as the person who is anxious, once they understand that with much prayer and supplication can make all their petitions or requests not to God, and the peace of God comes upon that person, whatever anxiety is gone, not abstractively, not intellectually, gone.

And then when peace arrives to the heart of that person, that person is not down anymore. It's empowered. Because now that person is walking not only in the peace that they have with God, which is objective, but they are experiencing the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. And now their mind can be filled with all thoughts of purity, of glory, and of Christ. and of tranquility, and of whatever comes my way, because now that person is not only consciously aware of the peace that they have with God, but they are experiencing that.

And that is Beloved of Christ. I think one of the greatest needs of our day, and I'm speaking for our church, that we will not only know the love of God, by the illumination of the Holy Spirit through the gospel and through Christ and everything that has been given to us that we will walk in the power of love now beloved of Christ now there's another standard a practical standard here because if a person does not pray if I you see now the sequence right if a person does not pray If a person is up and down in their life of secret prayer, can that person constantly and ongoingly abide and keep themselves in the presence and in the genuinely and living powerful awareness of the love of God? Absolutely not. They may be given glimpse from time to time when they're by the grace of God. but a person who is not, according to the text there, a person who is not praying in the Spirit.

will not build themselves up in their most holy faith. And they will not be able to obey the commandment of keeping themselves in the love of God. Because it's a commandment. Keep yourself in the love of God. And the way that you can obey the commandment is if you're praying and if you're building yourself in your most holy faith so that you are able to obey the commandment of keeping yourself in the love of God.

Now, beloved of Christ, as you can see, praying in the Holy Spirit, building your faith up. None of this is done in our own strength. All of it is done by the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit, ultimately, the one that brings us to abide and to keep ourselves in the manifested presence of the love of God. in which we experience the love, in which when we hear the word forgiven, that moves you inside.

Brothers and sisters, this is not a dead faith. This is a living faith. The gospel is not dead. It's not abstract. It is a living gospel.

Christ is not dead. He's alive. He's a living person. That when you hear the word forgiven, when you hear that how much he has loved us, that he gave his only begotten son, that our souls are not dull or indifferent. but rather that we are constantly moved by it.

Even when our husbands or wives or children, they have a manifestation of love towards us, they were moved in our heart towards emotions and experience of that glorious love that they may have for us and deserving it. Imagine how much more an ongoing constant and powerful, not only understanding that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, but that you are walking in the power and in the experience of the love of God given to a person through the Holy Spirit. Oh, beloved, what else in this world will take that? What is this valuable in this world? What would you fear if you are not only aware and knowing your mind that you're loved, But that you are indeed loved.

That you feel it. Even I feel a little bit uncomfortable using your words. But you understand what I mean, right? That you experience the love of God. Now, beloved of Christ.

Let me just simply put this experience of the love of God in a framework. Because now, this is very dangerous what I'm just saying, right? I might just be simply speaking not about emotions, about emotions that we just simply need to fabricate and just produce in us and that we're going to connect that to prayer and that we're going to put just loud music and pray and jump and do all of these things to move ourselves into an emotional state in which we feel happy and you know high or whatever word you have in English to for that, and then you consider that to be in the presence of the love of God, right? And I have to say that because we know that many people do those things and take those paths, right? So we are never to do that.

We need to take the framework, the framework of how we can experience the love of God. And that is given to you there. Our personal experience of the love of God. I wrote, I love our personal experience of the love of God. Now, these are the only things that I could find in a scripture.

But the first and most important thing, beloved of Christ, is that our personal experience of the of the love of God will only happen through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Go to that verse that I put there, 1 John 3, 16, please. Brother Chase, if you can just help me, please. No, just 316. Careful, I always say to you, read the word very carefully.

What do you think that is the key word there that tells us of the power of the gospel in our experience of the love of God? No! By this we know. What does it say brother? By this we know?

By this we know love. That is through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot know the love of God apart from the glorious gospel of Christ. So there is no music. There is no darkness in the room.

There is no smoke machine. There is nothing that can move us into the experience of the love of God other than the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this can happen with boring people like us just meditating upon the gospel of Christ. This can happen just in a place where there is nothing. It is only Jesus Christ and His Word.

because he's the gospel of Jesus Christ, beloved, the one that can make us know the love of God. Brother, he'll be pleased with chapter 4, verse 9. In this, the love of God, what is the key word there? manifested. God manifested his love.

Now, beloved of Christ, let me just give you a topic for your studies of the scriptures. God decided, this is not the Bible study, but God decided in eternity past to manifest his love. That is to show his love. And that only happens through the person of Jesus Christ. But God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

There was a revealing of God's love towards humanity, towards the church specifically. And that can only be received in fellowship with the person of Jesus Christ. that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon concerning the Word of life. The life was manifested and we have seen and declared to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. He was manifested to us.

Jesus Christ, the eternal life, the eternal Word that was with the Father, was manifested to the church, that the love of God will be made known to us. That is, that our experience, beloved of Christ, our experience of the love of God, can only happen through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Give your life to understand the gospel. And then you will see how you abide in the manifested presence of the love of God. If you allow me to use that term.

The manifested presence of the love of God. Because the positional love of God. We are always united to it. Right? But the manifested presence of the love of God.

Only through the gospel. And that love of God that only can be known, or manifested unto us by the Gospel, is something that can only be experienced by the work of the Holy Spirit. Because it's the Holy Spirit, the one that brings revelation and truth to the Gospel, right? The gospel to us is dead words. The gospel for humans is just dead, empty, meaningless words.

If the Spirit of God is not only illuminating, but it's also bringing the power of the love of God. This is the hope that does not disappoint, according to Paul in Romans chapter 5, right? This is the hope that does not disappoint. Why the hope does not disappoint for the Christian who is enduring through suffering? Because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that was given to us.

Romans chapter 5, I think it's verse 4 or 5. That is that God's love has been shed, poured into our hearts. And this is experiential, right? This is experiential, has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that was given to us. The Holy Spirit was once for all given to us, yes, but also called to be filled by the Spirit, to drink of the Spirit, to live in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, experientially and ongoingly.

But we are united to Christ by baptizing the Spirit of Christ in Christ. We are not moved from it, beloved of Christ. So we need the Gospel and we also need the work of the Holy Spirit. And the experience of the love of God happens then, now with something very important. Obedience.

You have the verse there, I think it's in John. Go to John chapter 15 please. Because the love of God is only experienced through obedience. John 15 verse 9. Now, here we also have another verse that speaks to us about this manifested presence of the love of God.

If that makes sense now in your head, that expression that I'm just using there. It says, As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. And then we have an instruction. Abide in my love. Abide in my love.

Right? Nothing can separate us from that love. But keep yourself in the love of God. Abide in my love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.

Beloved of Christ, the manifestation, the experience of God's love for us, which we are called to preserve and to abide and to keep ourselves in that presence of the manifestation of that love. It only happens through the glorious channels of the gospel of Christ, because it's Christ-centered. And it also happens through the empowering of the Holy Spirit and through obedience. that it is that we keep the commandments of the Lord, that we obey. You see the importance of prayer?

builds us up in our most holy faith. And through this, we are able to obey the commandment of keeping ourselves in the experience of the love of God, which you already belong. But we are called to abide and to stay in that presence, beloved of Christ. It is through the gospel. It is through the working of the Spirit.

And it's obedience. And every time that we are walking in the manifestation of the love of God, There's going to be glorious blessings that come upon our way, beloved of Christ. Because now we will understand the reality of love. Not as humans understand love. But we will understand love as the love of the Father that gave His only begotten Son.

And this is love that He gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. And this was love manifested that when we were sinners, He died for us. We have a genuine understanding of what love is. And the Apostle John makes the point that then if we love God, and if I say that I love God, then I'm supposed to genuinely love others. Because abiding in the presence, in the manifested presence of the love of God, is that which empower us to do that which we are receiving.

How can the anxious person genuinely call a person who is anxious to be at peace? How can the loveless person, the one who has not experienced the love of God and the powers, how can that person call genuinely to another person to experience the love of God? They can call it hypocritically, as many people do. Right? I'll be speaking of something that is not a reality in our lives.

The Beloved of Christ, when we have tasted that the Lord is good, then we can go to others and say, taste that this is the goodness of the Lord. Taste that this is the peace of the Lord. Now, the authority of what we say is not in the fact that we have actually tasted it or experienced it. It's not in that. But the written word now has become living word.

Because now the love of God that is written in these pages has now been illuminated and empowered in our hearts. And now we are living the Word. Now, pharisaical and hypocritical ways are no more. Because that is the religion, the one that knows, but the one that does not have the substance of the things that they say. I'm being in the presence of the love of God, or being, you know, experiencing the love that God has for us in the person of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.

gives us all of these glorious things. Imagine, as Jude says there, the glorious reality of the coming of the Savior will be just a natural thing. If we love this God so much, and he has loved us, and we know that then, Lord Jesus, come. awaiting for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ to be manifested unto us for eternal life. Beloved of Christ, this is the glorious power of love.

And now let me just point something to you, and I'm really sorry that I'm now going to go outside of your notes, because I have just to tell you this. Go to 1 John. I have been trying really hard to stay with your notes, because I know you are following them. Let me just point you to this. Let me just find a place.

OK. Chapter 4. Verse 17. Pay attention to this. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment.

Because as he is, so also are we in this world. Pay attention to this. There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

We love him because he first loved us." Beloved of Christ, that is the summary of what I have just simply said. the experience of our love the experience of the ability that we have to love genuinely according to what is written it is only a reality when we can say by faith with certainty and assurance that he loved us first now we say that many times with our words one thing is just to say that he loved us first The other thing is to live and experience the fact that the creator of this universe loves you. Even though now I feel just so uncomfortable even just saying those words of experience and feelings, but I hope that you understand what I'm just trying to say here. It is that our love to God and to others is a reflection of the love of God that has been illuminated into our souls by the Holy Spirit that is now experiencing us and empower us to live in the power of that love and to fulfill the law of God.

Because the law of God is fulfilling. love all the commandments of the Lord are kept and fulfilled with that love one for the other love for God but all of these is only possible when the person is not only consciously aware but rather illuminated by the power of the spirit that that person is loved and that person is experiencing the love of God not beloved of Christ That what I just have said is the definition of walking the way of God, or walking in the light, or walking in the truth, or walking in the Spirit, or being led by the Spirit. That is the Christian life. And all of it depends in prayer. Because the requirement, beloved of Christ, for us to experience that love is that we will be built up in our faith, right?

It says that we are to be built up in our most holy faith. Quickly, just go to Peter, because now I said that the time is not very late. But just go to Peter. You have to love the words of God. Because of what I'm going to show you, perhaps you already know what I'm going to show you.

But Jude says, building yourself up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God. So keeping yourself in the love of God is the pinnacle of the mountain. And the instruction that Jude gives us is that we are to take our faith and to build up ourselves in our most holy faith. And the way that we build ourselves in our most holy faith is by praying in the Holy Spirit. And then Peter, in his second letter, says in verse five, remember, this is the building up of faith.

for this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith that is to build up your faith to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. The pinnacle of what Peter had said in his second letter in chapter number one. It is what Jude is telling us there, that we are to keep ourselves in the love of God, how? By building ourselves in our most holy faith. That is the building up, the construction, the growing of our faith by all of these virtues that are supplemented and added onto our faith.

A faith that has all of those elements. Like a building. Like a building. And prayer is that which empowers all of the things that are happening here. Prayer is that which empowers the building up of our faith with all of these virtues.

Prayer is that which takes us from all of those steps and makes us abide in the love of God. And then you can see how the argument continues because then it says in verse eight, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so near sighted that he is blind. That is fear there is in that person. For whoever lacks these qualities is only excited that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

How do you experience the love of God? Only through the gospel, and only through the spirit of God, and only through obedience. You are not praying. You're not building your faith up. You're not in the love of God.

And then what you experience is the opposite to it. Now, the gospel, you're nearsighted to the gospel. And now fear comes your way and uncertainty and ups and downs and from one place to another, because now you are not being built up in your most holy faith and beloved of Christ. All of it depends on prayer. Now, I could have started and I could have just taken this Bible and said it to you.

What is prayer? You know, I speak of prayer, the method of prayer and all of this. I speak about prayer. If we do not understand the importance of us being diligent in a secret life of prayer, we will be moved just by the flesh temporarily. and will not abide in that type of prayer.

Because this is the reason, the way or how we are supposed to pray, according to Jude there, beloved, is that we are to do it in the Spirit. So that means that when we come to the secret place, it's a spiritual experience, not in the flesh. But it's an experience that happens in the Spirit. That means that it's a manifestation of walking in the Spirit. There is a manifestation of being led by the Spirit, as our brother explained to us from Galatians chapter 5.

That means not that we are going to pray with tongues, as many people say, that praying in the Spirit is just uttering your mouth, open your mouth and speak with different tongues. That is, pray with the Spirit, according to 1 Corinthians chapter 14, something that was led only for the church in the early church. But praying in the Spirit, not with the Spirit, but in the Spirit, It is to be in complete alignment with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. That is the Spirit of Christ that is within us. That is the one that is making groanings and guiding us into how we are supposed to pray.

That is the one that is bringing the truth of the Scriptures and the beauty of Christ and the Gospel into our minds and into our hearts. So that we will be so aligned with the Spirit that we will pray in the Spirit. Not because you have to. You think that praying in the Spirit is that cool, in different prayer, in which you are preaching yourself through just taking a bow so you appease yourself? No, beloved!

This is the glorious manifestation of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that has allowed you to come, in times of need, to His throne of grace, because He made a way for you to be there, and that you can open your mouth by the Spirit that is leading you, and that you can come and commune with this God. In prayer, in secret prayer, in the Holy Spirit that guides you, moves you through His Word and through the truth. Beloved of Christ, I don't have any other words and I know that I'm just going to late and I'm not going to be able to finish everything that I wanted to say. It's okay, because the main mission of what I wanted to say to you is that If you have heard any of my words, as I said sometimes to my brother or my sister, if you have heard my words, not my words but what I was just trying to share with you from the scriptures, not with your ears, but if you have heard in your heart the words, beloved of Christ, there is no place where a regenerated Christian desires to be but in the presence of the love of God. in which the gospel is so clear, in which my unrighteousness and how unrighteous I am is clear.

But at the same time, his love is so clear and so manifested that I'm walking in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, that I'm walking in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no other place that the soul would genuinely desire. And the way that we arrive to that place, if we can say that, it is through prayer, praying at all times. Pray with urgency. Pray with what I have there in Ephesians 6, verse 18.

With perseverance. Hear me, beloved of Christ. Endurance! Perseverance! Your flesh is going just to tell you this or that.

You are to persevere and you are to endure in the presence of the Lord, in His Word. You are to endure, you are to pray before Him with much prayer and with much supplication, manifesting your love towards others, interceding for the sakes of the gospel, beloved of Christ. So that what you Jude said there, but you beloved right? The commandment, the commandment that is given there is, but you beloved building yourself up in your most holy fate, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God. Why?

Because what he's actually worrying them about or against is the false prophets that can make you lose your own instability. As I said to you on Sunday. Because beloved, we can only be built up, strengthened and mature through this type of life. Am I calling you to do do do do do do? I am not, in a sense I am, but I am not.

I'm trying to point you to the beauty of God and Jesus Christ and the gospel and the love that he has for you. So if your eyes are open to that, I'm not going to have to force you. You're going to desire to be in the presence of the Lord. And your soul is going to be telling you what time is even this Bible study finishing so that I can go into my secret place, whatever that is. and be in the presence of the Lord, because, beloved, that is the desire of the Spirit for us to commune and to be with Him.

Beloved of Jesus Christ, your Christian life is not greater than your secret prayer. Men can give themselves unto studying the words of God. As I said to the men when it was Tuesday, Men can give themselves to study the Word of God. Men can spend hours studying the Word of God. Because in the study of the Word of God, there is an external reward.

Oh, look how much I know the Scriptures. Look how much I know theology. Look how much I have studied. Look how much, look, I have people that are listening to me. Look, all of this is appealing to the flesh.

So men can give themselves unto studying and call that faithfulness. You see the heart of a man in the secret place of prayer. Because in the secret place of prayer, the only rewarder is God. Because no one sees. He's the one that works in the secret place.

Pulpits and churches are filled by men who will give themselves hours to check the Greek and the Hebrew and their software and their books and all of this with this amount of study and this amount of secret place, if at all. And they will call this faithfulness. Beloved of Jesus Christ, the heart of the man and of the woman has to be right in the presence of the Lord. And I'm not saying that there is a quantitative ratio between the one and the other. But what I'm saying is that the desire of our heart, it's always the Lord Jesus Christ.

So whenever we come to read scriptures and to study it, or whenever we come to the secret place of prayer, the desire of our heart is always the same, Christ. so that we're not choosing between what we do and what we don't, but it is Christ. And that is for scripture, that is for prayer, that is for fasting, that is for intercession, that is for evangelism, that is for all of these things that the Bible calls us to, in which we are not to do them because we want to be good Christians, but because there's a savior, that these things are drawing us closer to his presence. Beloved of Christ, may the Lord make us people that walk these pilgrims on our knees, not only individually, but also as a church. May the Lord bless us.

Amen.