The Experience of God's love..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. I want to speak to you about the experience of the love of God being perfected in you. The experience of the love of God being perfected in you.

And as we are going to be speaking about those matters, we're going to be reading the scriptures, of course. Let me warn you, my dear brother and my dear sister, that here we are going to be speaking, yes, about an experience. An experience of the Christian. And that experience is in relation to the love of God. And at times when conservative Christians come and hear the word experience, and that in relation to the love of God, at times the flesh will put a wall.

that would say, wow, we believe this by faith, we don't live by sight, and we don't live by emotions, and we don't live by experiences. And while that is true, my dear brother, my dear sister, it is true that it's by faith, and that faith is given from the Lord, it is also true that if a person has been genuinely transformed, if a person has been genuinely visited by the Holy Spirit, if a person is a genuine believer, that that person will be transformed, that that person will be changed. And that change in life is meant to be seen in an experience. How do we expect, my dear brother, my dear sister, my dear soul, that a person who has genuinely believed in the Lord, a person whose heart has been transformed from a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, will remain experiencing the same that he or she experienced before salvation? How is Christianity going to be just simply an abstract idea of the mind?

How are we going to deny the powerful abiding of the Holy Spirit that is meant to produce a genuine experience in those who profess to be in Christ? How are we going to redefine the fruit of the spirit and redefine joy with something that is to be understood in the mind? How are we going to redefine the fruit of the spirit and understand loving kindness and faith with something that is abstractly understood with the mind? If we do that, we do violence against the scriptures. The Christian life is one of experience.

The Christian life is one of emotions. The Christian life is one of transformation. The Christian life is indeed life. We were dead and now we have been made alive. And how can an alive person remain in the dead emotions and the dead feelings that they experienced when they were in Adam?

So, having said and given that warning, I'm going to speak to you, my dear brother and sister, about the experience of the love of God being perfected in your heart. And we're going to be taking that from verse 5, as I said, verse 4 and 5 of chapter 2. I'm going to invite you to read with me from verse 5 through verse 11 my lord help us. I'm going to try to make this concise and short and clear from verse 5 in chapter 1 Let us read together brothers and sisters paying attention to those two verses in 4 and 5 I read from the English Standard Version follow with my voice if you're reading a different translation where you are Let us read by faith on this very day. There are many Christians who do not have the Bible in their hands.

I who do not have not even a page of the Bible in their hands. We have one, so let us read it with faith, believing that the Lord is able to accomplish in us that which he has promised that he will do. This is the first letter of John, chapter one from verse five through verse 11 in chapter two. Let us read together. This is the word of the Lord.

This is the message, it says, verse five. This is the message we have heard from him. I'm proclaiming to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things so that, but to you, so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.

And he himself is the propitiation for our sins. And not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we know Him, or we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. Whoever says, I know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word in him, truly the love of God is true.

By this we may know that we are in Him. Whoever says he abides in Him, ought himself also ought to walk in the same walk in which he walked. He loves it, it says, verse seven, O brethren, I am writing to you, or I'm writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard from the beginning. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

Weber says, He is in the light and hates his brothers, he's still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. Amen, that is the reading of the word. My dear brother, my dear sister, when we started with the exposition of the first letter of John, I wanted to say to the church, to the local church, and that we will be very clear that this book is about the practical Christian life.

It is, in a sense, an exposition of what this same apostle says in John 17, verse three, that eternal life is that we know God the Father, the only true God, and whom he sent, the Lord Jesus Christ. Genuine salvation is intimate knowledge of God. Not knowledge that happens in the mind, but knowledge that happens spiritually in the heart. And that experience of knowing God and the Lord Jesus Christ is meant to be manifested in external experiences. Obedience is the result of a spiritual transformation that happens in the heart of a person.

And the first letter of John addresses all of those external manifestations of genuine profession of faith. This very day, there are hundreds and thousands and perhaps millions of professing Christians who are seated in chairs, and even perhaps in this very building, who say with their mouth that they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ while they are on their way to hell. This very day in which people are coming together to celebrate a human celebration, there are people from pulpits preaching the word while they are on their way to hell. Salvation is not religion that is done. Salvation is not something that is just simply performed and boxes that are ticked.

Salvation is a spiritual knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that spiritual transformation is evidenced in a transformed life. The transformation of that life, my dear brother and sister, requires a transformation of experiences. In those verses that we have in chapter 2, verse 3 to 6, we have different type of experiences of transformation. If anyone says, I know him and does not keep his commandments, that person is a liar. And the truth is not in him.

That is the experience of the truth. If a person has received the truth, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, then that person is going to be one that does not only say with the mouth that they know him and that they are Christians, but they are going to keep the commandments of the Lord. We have the experience of assurance of salvation. And by this, we know that we know him. we keep his commandments.

The one in whom the truth of Christ abides is the person to whom the testimony of the Spirit is given so that they know that they have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Once they were in doubt about their lives, now they are assured, he says in verse 3, by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. The person who has been genuinely transformed by the power of the Spirit is a person who will keep the commandments of the Lord, who will keep the word of the Lord. And as verse 6 says, one who will walk as the Lord Jesus Christ walked. Because salvation is a complete transformation, my dear brother and sister, that is going to be seen and evidenced in experiences that a Christian, German believer experiences.

And here we have in verse four and five another experience, and that is found in verse five. Whoever keeps his words in him truly, the love of God is perfected. The experience of the love of God. Not an abstract idea. Not a person who is able to understand and to define the love of God with a mouth.

Not a person who has studied the systematic theology and understands all the debates about the love of God. Not a person who is very quick to have the word love in their lips. But a person who has experienced in him or her the love of God being perfected. Within the sound of my voice, souls that can hear my words, souls that have either experienced the love of God being perfected, or souls who do not experience the love of God being perfected, or more sad, or sadder, perhaps is the proper grammar in English, those who have at all experienced the love of God in their hearts being perfected, coming to a completion. My dear brother, my dear sister, here we are speaking about an experience.

And we can see it during the text in verse 5 when the apostle says, in him the love of God is perfected. He does not say that he understands that the love of God is perfected, but rather, in him truly, oh indeed, The love of God is perfected. Because we are speaking about an experience. An experience that is not in the mind, but that is in the person. An experience that it happens through emotions.

Even as you go to chapter four, in the parallel passage of speaking of the love being perfected, very quickly, you can see there in verse 18, in chapter four, it says, there is no fear in love. A perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears, you see it there, my dear brethren, in verse 18, chapter four, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. Because the perfecting in love, or the lack of perfection in love, involves feelings and emotions. In chapter 3, from verse 16 onwards, the apostle will speak about those emotions being in the heart of that person.

The heart of the Christian is the one that condemns them, or the heart of the Christian, through the Lord, is the one that excuses them. That is the presence of the Lord. But it's an experience. the experience of the love of God being perfected. And if you return to the text, your brethren, there's something more important here, that this is an experience of a genuine believer.

You see the first word in verse 5? What is the first word in verse 5, brethren? chapter 2 But there is a contrast that happens between first verse 4 and 5 It's a contrast not only of two verses, but it's a contrast of two different type of people The person that is described in verse 4 is one who says with him out I know him and he does not keep his commandment and the Apostle says that he is a liar and the truth is not in him but the comparison comes in verse 5 of another person and that is the person who is not a liar but rather is the person that tells the truth and who is a person who indeed has the truth in him the Lord Jesus Christ enthroned in his or her heart. person in verse 5 is a person that is genuinely taken captive by the love of God as he's manifesting the cross and that person by virtue of the Holy Spirit that has transformed him or her can keep his commandments and in that person my dear brother and sister The love of God is made perfect. Not only that, but truly, in him or her, the love of God is being made perfect.

This is an experience of the emotions of the heart, and it's an experience that in a sense, very clear sense in this passage, and then explained more in chapter three and chapter four, is an experience that is a qualifier, brethren, of genuine profession of faith. There is no genuine believer, there is no genuine believer, as I will try to show you from the scriptures and even just this verse, there is no genuine believer who has not experienced at all the love of God in them being made perfect. Brother, once again, There is no genuine believer who has not experienced at all the love of God in them, in their hearts, being made perfect. Then from chapter 3 and verse 4 and chapter 4, we know that there might be Christians, genuine Christians, who because of sin might not be presently experiencing the love of God being perfected in their hearts, but if a person has not experienced at all the love of God in their hearts being made perfect, then that person is dead in their trespasses and is the person of verse 4 in whom the truth is absent. who says with the mouth, I know him, and does not keep the commandments of the Lord.

Now think about that. An emotional experience of the heart as a qualifier of your spiritual condition. And that being preached from my conservative Calvinist buildings. An emotion, a feeling of the Christian as a qualifier of your genuine spiritual condition before the Lord. And what is that experience and what is that emotion?

In you, the love of God being made perfect. I don't know about you, brother, but I want to know what is the experience of the love of God being made perfect. I want to not only know, brother, I don't want to be the man of the person of verse 4, I want to be the one of verse 5. I want to indeed experience in my heart the love of God being made perfect. Many will say, Lord, Lord, didn't we know everything that we know from Matthew chapter 7?

Didn't we, didn't we, didn't we do and cast out demons and mighty works and all of these things? He never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of inequity. I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of inequity.

Let us then see and consider, my dear brother and sister, the experience of the love of God being made perfect in the heart of a person. The first thing that I want you to have very clear is not only that it's an experience, but it's also personal. I can say in us, but it is in you. That's no matter what the person next to you is experiencing in the heart when it comes to the Lord. That's no matter for the purposes of your salvation, of course.

It does not matter for the eternal purposes what is the spiritual condition of the preacher that is preaching the message. I could be going on my way to hell. If what I say is true, then it's just simply the words of God. My dear brother and my dear sister, it is an individual matter that the protocols of religion and the things that religion does cannot disguise or change or produce in and of itself. It is only the Lord.

A personal experience. Now, pay attention. What do we have to experience? What is that that the Christian is supposed to experience there from the text? And what we have said, it says that we are to experience the love of God.

The love of God being made perfect. Now, brethren, it does not say the love that you have for God, but rather it says the love of God. And this is very important, my dear brother and sister, because you are more likely to receive assess your emotions for someone else than someone else's emotions towards you. It's easier for you to distinguish the people that you love or you don't love, rather than the person or the people who love you or don't love you. Here, the apostle is saying that the experience is not one of your love and your affections towards the Lord, but rather is the love of God.

Is the love of God the one that we are supposed to experience? And it's not the love of God, my dear brother and sister, in a general sense, in which I just need to understand that He died upon the cross for me, and that for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Not that, but the love that God has for you. Yes, it is true that the Lord loves the church. Yes, it is true that the Lord loves the collective of his people.

But here the important and the veracity that is a word of the experience relies in the fact that is a personal experience. The love of God for you. You can just simply now answer that in your conscience. What is your experience? of the love of God for your soul.

What is your experience of the love that the Scriptures testify and speak about for your soul? Not for the world, not for the brethren, not for the church, but for your soul. You know your sins, you know the things that you have in your head, you know the things that you have said, the things that you have not said, the things that you have done, the things that people know that you have done, the things that people have seen that you have done, but you also know the things that you have done that people do not know that you have done, and the things that you have done that you don't want anyone to know, and the things that you have done that God only knows. You know all of those, and beyond that, you have the things that you don't know that you have done and thought and did. Now, what is in light of who you are and the things that you have done, do and will do?

What is your experience of the love of God? Because this is a qualifier of your spiritual condition before the Lord. Because whoever keeps the words of the Lord, in him truly the love of God is perfected. In Him truly, indeed, there's no option. The one who keeps the word of the Lord, in Him truly, the love of God is made perfect.

That is the love of God that is supposed to experience. But dear brother and sister, but let us ask a question. I hear perhaps this is the main thing that I want to share with you. What is that love of God that we are supposed to experience? It says that we are to experience the love of God being made perfect.

What is the love of God? How is the love of God manifested to the Christian that they're supposed to be experiencing? You tell me. What is the love of God that is supposed to be experienced by the person? Forgiveness.

And that is found, come with me here to chapter 4, please. The love of God has been given to last in the person of Jesus Christ. Come here, please, to verse 10 of chapter 4. It says, in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. What is the love that the Christian, the genuine believer, by keeping the Word of the Lord, experiences being made perfect in his or her heart?

That is the redemptive love that God has manifested in the person of Jesus Christ. It's not the love of God in a general sense, as if there was the love of God in a general sense. It's not an understanding of the mind of God has been so good that He created the heavens and the earth, and that He has blessed me with a spouse, and that He has blessed me with children, and that He has given me all of these things, that His providence is so good and so kind, and that is what is going to be made perfect in my heart. All of that is very good and is very important. But the love of God, more clearly revealed and given to people, is found in the person of Jesus Christ.

The only way that we can know and experience the love of God, my dear brother and sister, is in the love that God manifested to the world in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the giving of the Lord Jesus Christ. That means that the gospel is the only way by which I can know this God and His love. And the only way that I can experience the love of God being perfected in my heart is through the message of the gospel in which Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, was sent to die upon the cross for my sins. That is how we know. That is the greatest revelation of the love of God.

And that is, my dear brother and sister, the love that is meant to be experienced in your heart, but you know that, you know that. Let me just simply show you a couple of things from this love of God as has been manifested in the Gospel and in the sending of His Son that perhaps will help us to see a little bit deeper this love of God that is found, and from there we're going to move to see the genuine experience of that message of the Gospel. A couple of things that I want to show you according to how my memory and my mind goes. Let me just show you the first one. The first one is that the love of God, the love that God has had for us in sending his son to die upon the cross for us, is categorically different to the love that you can experience for him.

Once again, the love that God has for you in sending his son Jesus Christ to die upon the cross for your soul is categorically different to the love that you can have for Him. When I say categorically different, I'm speaking about a different kind, a different category, as you know, like blocks from cats, a different category of love. We use the same word, but human love is in a complete different category of what the love of God is. The love of humans is contingent upon relationship and retribution. That is that the human love only loves when there is an existing relationship or some type of retribution that I get something that I consider to be beneficial for me.

That is that we love those who either love us or those who are good to us or those who are in a relationship to us. Human love by nature is a love that is contingent upon the existence of a relationship or retribution of some type. Do you love Charles Square in Colombia? You don't even know him. There's no relationship.

There is nothing that you give or take. Love for the human is based upon relationship. The love of the Lord. The love of God, my dear brother. The love of God.

It is despite a broken relationship. It is despite the lack of retribution. The apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 5, For God demonstrates his love towards us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Pay attention to these words. That while we were still sinners, a relationship of love, rather than a relationship of enmity, a relationship that is served wrath and judgment, God loved or demonstrated his love towards your soul in that while you were still a sinner, He sent His Son to die upon the cross, and in His long-suffering, and in His providence, and in His forbearance, He gave you every single day from the moment that you were born to the moment in which you were genuinely saved.

He kept you, He protected you. You did not even know Him. even hated the things of God, yet in his long suffering, he demonstrated his love towards you and towards the people of God, in that while you were still a sinner, he died for you. categorically different. Your love, my love, depends on relationship and retribution.

When you do something that I don't like or that something moves inside of me and I want you to do those things. Confession. When something happens, the love of a person is moved. Contingent upon relationship and contingent upon retribution. Yet, my dear brother, my dear sister, The God who saved you loves you in a way that is categorically different.

And the reason why is that way categorically different is because our love as Christians is a reflection of God's love. Remember the verse in chapter 4, verse 19? Why do we love as Christians? Because God first loved us. The Christian is only able to love as a reflection of the existence of God loves for us.

It is impossible for humans and then for Christians to love in the absence of the love of God. It is necessary. If a person is going to truly love, that the love will come from the Father. Because not even when they're saved, my dear brother and sister, love can be contingent upon relationship or retribution. Pay attention to verse 7 of chapter 4.

It says, Beloved, Let us love, this is speaking to Christians. Beloved, let us love one another. Why? Because you're brothers and sisters? No, not contingent upon relationship, contingent upon the one who is love, God himself.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. The love of God is categorically different to your love with your brother and sister because God himself is love. Actually, the definition of love is God himself. God is his attributes.

Love is defined by Him. He is the one that produces and gives everything that love is meant to be. And the way that a person can genuinely love another person is when that person has been visited by the presence of the one who is love. Because we cannot love by virtue of our relationships, and we cannot love by virtue of retribution. We can only love when that love comes from God.

And if we love Him, we keep His commandments, and the keeping of the commandments is loving one another. Think about all the unrighteousness and all the blackness and all the thickness of the blackness of the injustice and unrighteousness that has been through your mind and in your heart and in mind and everything that we have done. Yet, he loved you not with the love that Charles in Columbia can have for you. Not even the love that your father can have for you. Because perhaps a good person would dare to die for another good person, right?

It says Apostle Paul in Romans chapter five. that God didn't want to spread His love towards you, that while you were in a broken relationship with Him, He sent the Lord Jesus Christ to die upon the cross for you. Categorically different. Second thing that I want you to see is, my dear brother and sister, that the love of God is concealed. The love of God is concealed to the world.

Do you understand that word, concealed, or misinterpreted in English? You know, secret, like a cat? Concealed. The love of God is secret or concealed to the world. Fallen humanity cannot know the love of God that is found in the person of Christ.

Pay attention to what it says in chapter 4, it's still in verse 9 of chapter 4 in 1 John, it says, In this the love of God was made manifest among us. that God sent his son into the world so that we may live through him. How was the love of God being made manifest? In that he sent his son to die for the church. In the sending of his son to die for the church, God manifested a love that cannot be seen, that cannot be observed, that cannot be witnessed, with the majesty of creation, with the majesty of the things that God has done, even though all of those condescensions are glorious, and the heavens speak of the glory of the Lord, the love of God can only be seen and observed in the person of Jesus Christ, and the way that a person can see the love of God, it is through faith.

says in verse 16 if you go down there in the same chapter with your brother and sister it says in verse 15 better of chapter 4 whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God God abides in him and he in God so by confessing right you see verse 15 whoever confesses that Jesus is son of God that is having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ so we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. We cannot come to know and believe the love that God has for us if a person has not professed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, because the love of God is only revealed to those who genuinely have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who confess that the Son of God is the Lord Jesus Christ and die for them, they are the only ones who can believe and know the love of God. And if it was by faith in the beginning, let me tell you, my dear brother and sister, that it continues to be by faith. The only way that a Christian can experience the love of God being made perfect in you, it is by the continual and ongoing abiding of faith.

That is what the apostle says in chapter 3, verse 24 and 25. This is the commandment, that you believe in the name of the Son of Jesus Christ and that you love one another. That is the commandment. Faith, my dear brother and sister, is that which will give you access into the experience of the love of God. Because the love of God, first of all, my dear brother, is categorically different to your love.

Second, the love of God was concealed and is only revealed through the gospel. And thirdly, and very importantly, the Christian can only understand and experience the love of God through an understanding of propitiation. You see there, verse 10? The love of God can only be understood in light of propitiation. The love of God being categorically different, the love of God being hidden from human perspectives of love can only be understood and can be comprehended in light of propitiation.

It says in verse 10. In this, and this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. How was the love of God manifested for the saints? The love of God was manifested for the saints in the sending of His Son, not only to be a good teacher, not only to be the one that is going to save the world, not only just to be the Son of God, but to be the propitiation for our sins. That means that if a Christian wants to experience and know the love of God that is revealed in the gospel, that person must understand that the coming of the Savior was with the purpose of propitiation.

And that means, my dear brother and sister, that being dead in your trespasses, you were the object of the wrath of God. That everyone who is born in Adam, by virtue of just being conceived, by virtue of just simply being born, by virtue of only existing, that person is in union with Adam, and that person is under the wrath of the Lord. Sons of disobedience according to Ephesians chapter 2. Children of wrath according to the same book. Those are the ones who are born outside of Christ.

The wrath of God is upon that person and if there is no one who pays the price of their sin, that wrath will remain. The Lord Jesus Christ came 2,000 years ago to die upon the cross to receive the fullness of the wrath that your soul deserves and by pouring the wrath of the Father upon the Son, your guilt was expiated, your sins were forgiven, and that is the propitiation of the sins that you now have, that you will ever have. My dear brother, my dear sister, if a person wants to understand the love of the Father, that person must always define, understand, comprehend, and think about the love of God in terms of propitiation. That is, that in the midst of your unrighteousness, that in the midst of your blackness, that in the midst of your sin, that you deserve death and hell, He gave His Son to pay for your sins. As simple as the old message that was given from the beginning and the early church proclaimed, He died for you.

And my dear brother and my dear sister, the message has been said and has been preached so many times, that at times the soul can easily be removed from the personal realization of their own unrighteousness. But at times the person can easily observe and see and discern the unrighteousness of others. Can easily see and observe the unrighteousness of the lost, of the atheist, of the Muslim, of the other person, of the other religion. And at times we are very slow to see the sin and the darkness that is within us. Because when the person is slow to assess the unrighteousness that is within us, then the person is not going to be able to understand the love of God that was manifested in the Lord Jesus Christ sent as a propitiation for your sins.

A greater glimpse of our darkness, a greater glimpse of our blackness, a greater glimpse of our sin is that which allows us to see the majesty, the glory, and the condescension of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in saving us, my dear brother, my dear sister. And let me tell you, this experience is powerful, but it's still an experience. And I have not answered what that experience is. How do we experience that? One thing is to think about it, right?

One thing is to understand what propitiation is. One thing is to remember the things that I have done. One thing is to remember with the mind the place from where I have fallen. One thing is to even be aware of the sins that we continually committed. One thing is to be aware of the blackness of our thoughts and the unrighteousness of our deeds.

One thing is to be aware of that, but how do we experience A genuine understanding of that love for you. How do we experience in the soul, in the being, in the heart? And that word is the answer that this brother gave just before. For-give-ness. Rather, for-give-ness.

Forgiveness is not only an abstract word. It's an experience. Forgiveness is just not something that you are to understand. It's something that is meant to move you and your heart. It's something that is to be experienced in your skin and your being.

The thought of being forgiven will move everything from within. It's not about saying, Jesus Christ died upon the cross for me, and now I believe. Let us continue our lives. It is when the person comes to the genuine realization that he died for him or her, that there is an experience of forgiveness. And that experience of forgiveness is what makes the love of God being made perfect in your heart.

And with me to Luke chapter 7. In Luke chapter 7, you will now hear a very famous story in which we can see together love and forgiveness. Right? Luke chapter 7. I'm thinking if I'm telling this story or not.

A couple of days ago, someone gave my daughter a perfume. I don't know, two or three days ago, someone gave her that perfume. Just, I think, two days ago. I was just sleeping on my bed, and I just started to feel my feet. They were wet.

And then I just see, and there is her just putting the perfume on my feet and going with her hair and cleaning my feet. She did not know what a perfume is for. She only knew the story of the perfume here from Luke chapter 7. This is what she thought a perfume is for. Now, my dear brother and my dear sister, that attitude of a child is the attitude that we ought to have.

when we come to the forgiveness of our sins before the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 36, chapter 7. One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner when she learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment. And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to weed his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner. And Jesus answered and said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you. And he answered, say, teacher, a certain money lender had two debtors, one owed 500 denarii and the other 50. And when they could not pay, he canceled the debt with both. Now which of them will love him more?

Simon answered, the one I suppose for whom he canceled the larger debt. And he said to him, you have judged rightly. Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet. She has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.

You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little loves little. And he said to her, her sins are forgiven.

Then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? The Lord Jesus! And he said to the woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Brethren, brethren, this is the experience that brings the love of God to be perfected in our hearts.

He did not come to save just or righteous people. He came to save sinners. He did not come to save people who did not need grace. He came to save people who needed grace. He did not come to save the person that is good.

He came to save the one that is bad. He did not come to save the one that is all done and properly dressed and knows the answers of everything. He came to save the broken. He came to save the one that is lost, the one that is despised. Brethren, this is who we are.

This is how the love of God is perfected in our hearts. with a genuine experience of the forgiveness that He has given us in Christ. That if you keep His commandments, truly, truly, indeed, the love of God is being made perfect in you. And when there is perfect love, there's no fear. Why?

Because perfect love casts out fear, and there's no fear of punishment. There's no fear that there's condemnation upon my shoulders. That is perfect love, not the love of God and loving in the quality of Jesus, but rather your vessel, whatever it is, this size, this size, this size, this size, whatever the size of your vessel is, filled with the certainty that God gave his son to die upon the cross for you. Amen.