Can true love for the Lord be corrupted? Who has it?

Do I Love the Lord Jesus Christ with Incorruptible Love?

Ephesians 6:21-24

Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church

I hope you have your Bibles. Please turn to the last section of Ephesians. We are finishing our study of this great epistle this morning. So this is the final morning we will be going verse to verse through Ephesians. We will be going into the epistle of James next, which will be very edifying, ("God willing" as James says there in his epistle). Please go to 6:21. As you are turning there, I want to touch on a foundational definition. I want to talk about what it means for something to be incorruptible. When something is incorruptible, it is incapable of being destroyed. It is not susceptible to destruction. It is not subject to disintegration. It is not subject to decay. At the risk of sounding redundant; it can not be corrupted. There are very few things we can list as being incorruptible. God's truth is incorruptible. People may try to change it. People may even attack it, or they may try to hide it, but no matter what they do, the truth itself still exists in all of its incorruptible facts and glory. Whether it is recognized by men, or not, the word of God is the truth. It is perfect. It lasts forever. It is incorruptible. What else is incorruptible? God is incorruptible. He is self existent. He always was. He always is. He is always perfect. What else? The eternal life of all the elect in salvation is incorruptible eternal life. It will always be life, and it will always be eternal, and it will always be perfect human eternal life. Eternality remains eternal if it is truly eternal. Any thing else is merely another category, like temporary life. Temporary life was never eternal. If it is eternal, then it would not be temporary. God's grace that He has bestowed upon the elect is incorruptible. Grace means unmerited, undeserved, unearned favor. To corrupt God's unmerited favor would mean that God's favor would suddenly be based upon merit--upon something we have done, or we can offer to God. But for favor based upon merit to exist, would mean that it must be something other than grace. God's Grace is always unmerited favor. Human generated (humanly earned) reward is merited favor. So, grace remains incorruptible. If something is worthy of due reward, it is not grace. It has simply existed in its own category. Then there is God's love for His elect. God's love is incorruptible. It stays love, and it will always be love. We read about it all throughout First an Second Chronicles, and in the Psalms, that

"The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever."

All these things are incorruptibles. But, I want to keep our attention focused upon this last one--God's love is incorruptible, steadfast, and endures forever. In Romans, we read that while we were unlovely, and while we were disgusting to God who is Holy, incorruptible, and pure, He condescended to show His incorruptible love for us,

"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

Corrupted humanity requires the incorruptible love of God to be saved. God demonstrated this love in the most amazing manner. He demonstrated His incorruptible love by saving sinners through the sacrificial death of His perfectly sinless Son. This morning I urge you to be thinking about incorruptible love. Think about how strong, secure, immovable and unfading it is as we read our passage. Please read it along with me now, starting in verse 21,

"21 But that you also may know about my circumstances, how I am doing, Tychicus, the dearly loved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will make everything known to you. 22 I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us, and that he may comfort your hearts. 23 Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love." Ephesians 6:21-24

Let us prepare our hearts to study God's word this morning in verse to verse exposition of the Scriptures. The title of the sermon is a personal question. It is one of the most important questions that you will ever ask yourself;

Do I Love the Lord Jesus Christ with Incorruptible Love? [prayer]

Putting our minds back to the historic context, I want to remind all of us that Paul the apostle has been writing the letter of Ephesians from prison. He finishes up his epistle to the Ephesians with some final thoughts. This morning we are finishing up with our verse to verse gleaning from this great epistle. We want the treasure of Paul's final thoughts to become the treasure of our thoughts in our Christian lives. As we dig for the treasure, we notice that Paul gets some closing comments out of the way about His need for the Christians to pray for him, and then sending Tychicus to inform the saints of the Ephesus region of how he is doing. Then Paul goes on to make a blessing request to the saints that he calls brothers. Now, in answering the question of whether we love the Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love, I think a side door has been opened here to give us a bit of insight into the answer to this important question. The door has to do with Paul's description of Tychicus,

"21 But that you also may know about my circumstances, how I am doing, Tychicus, the dearly loved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will make everything known to you." Ephesians 6:21

At this point, we are introduced to a man that we no very little about. His name is Tychicus. We might not know a whole lot about him, but we know that Tychicus is a servant of the Lord. He is a dearly loved brother. Now think about how he is described. All of this is language that Paul uses to describe him, is language that only describes saved people. Stay with me on the point that I am trying to make because it's all going to come together in a few moments. What I want us to notice right now, is that Paul is very assured of his statements that he makes about Tychicus. A servant of the Lord is someone who is owned by Christ through the great purchase that occurred on the cross. He is a person whose life is given to Christ to do His will. We also see that Paul recognizes that Tychicus, the Christian brother, the servant of Christ, is described as faithful in his servant hood. What this means is that Tychicus has faith that is incorruptible. Tychicus is trustworthy in Christ, and Paul knows it. But, the question for us to ask about Paul's confident knowledge of these things, is

How does Paul really know that Tychicus has a love for Christ that won't be corrupted before he gets to the Ephesians?

How does Paul know that Tychicus is not a fake?

You know, there are a lot of people who can fake their Christianity so well that they fool everyone around them into believing that they are Christians. They were never truly brothers or sisters. They were never truly servants of Christ. They were never faithful. Their whole lives were one big lie. Their whole association with Christianity is one big scam. For some,the whole charade is to make money. Marjo Gortner was like this. An award winning documentary was made about Mr. Gortner. He held evangelism campaigns and healing services all over this country. Thousands of people would pack out the auditoriums to hear Mr. Gortner. They would come by the droves to get healed. Hundreds of pastors said that Marjo was an anointed man of God. People claimed to be healed when he laid hands on them. He would preach Christ. He seemed so faithful. He seemed, so, so, Christian. But Marjo was a con man. He said he never believed in Christ the whole time He preached and performed for the crowds, in so-called ministry. But people believed in Him, and in fact, Pastors and Christian leaders all over the country said they could not believe that Mr. Gortner was not really a saved, anointed, man of God. He made the award winning documentary to show how easily people can be deceived by a fake, and how easy it is to convince someone that you are a Christian, and that you are a servant of God, but you really aren't. Now he speaks in colleges about how to manipulate people into believing they are healed, or slain in the spirit, through the power of clever stage techniques of persuasion. But there are others. There are those who claim that they are saved because they want to be accepted by the crowd. A lot of people say they are Christians because they want to be accepted by their family, or by certain friends. Many people are raised in Christian families, so they think they are Christian. They think they are saved--after all, mom and dad are saved;

I learned about Jesus. I memorized some Bible verses growing up. Doesn't that make me saved?

There are many folks who lead lives where there is a lot of Jesus talk, but they don't have a true understanding of the authentic grace of God. They are knowledgeable about Jesus, but they are not living miracles of God. They have not been made born again by the hand of God, and so they work, and work, and work for their salvation in an attempt to please God enough so that He will save them. Or they have a natural temporary curiosity kind of belief. It is a quick belief that comes and goes, because it seemed right, but they never really completely embraced Christ as Master of their heart, and Savior of their soul. They don't have the gift of faith that comes through the sovereignty of God. A true brother, on the other hand, is someone who is a child of God in the family of God. Only Christians are children of God. All saved people are conceived and birthed into the family of God in the New Covenant of Christ, through the cross and resurrection. All saved people are brothers and sisters according to the miracle work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. All saved people are saved by pure grace, through pure faith in Christ to save them from their sins. The reason that Paul knows that Tychicus is a truly authentic brother is because Paul knows that Tychicus loves Christ with an incorruptible love. Paul has keen insights that have been given him by the Lord. Paul knows the real deal, and Paul knows that any brother or sister who loves the Lord with incorruptible love is the real deal. This applies to you and me, and it's all going to make sense by the end of the sermon. So stay with me as we work through this. Paul has sent this man who has this incorruptible love to comfort the hearts of a certain kind of people.

What term does Paul use to describe this certain kind of people?

Opening the door, I want us to notice that it is the same terminology that Paul uses to describe Tychicus. This is so vitally important to what I am trying to convey, so let's take a look in verse 23, where in the midst of Paul's closing comments, Paul says,

"23 Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

Paul is talking to brothers. Remember, this is what Paul calls Tychicus. Paul, Tychicus, and, a all of us who are saved--we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. It's family language for all saved people.

What else do we notice?

We also notice that Paul's farewell blessing is to wish love and faith from God the Father. Tychicus was called faithful. Love and faith is what all of us who are truly saved have. But the blessing, like all blessings of the epistles, is meant to wish a magnification of these things on the saints. And so we also notice Who the blessing comes from. It comes from God the Father of the only begotten Son, Christ. God is also the Father of all saved people who are begotten in Christ. In other words, God is our Father, and we are all related to each other in Christ.

Then finally we notice that Tychicus is a servant in Jesus Christ the Lord, and that Paul wishes peace to the brothers from the same Lord. What this means is that Christ is our Master, and so, like Tychicus, and the Ephesian Christians, and all of us who are truly saved, we are His servants.

All of these things are things I want us to keep in mind. What do we see?

We see that Paul is sure that Tychicus is a Christian in solid salvation. Then, Paul wishes peace to be to the other Christians who are described with the same terms of people who are in solid salvation. Paul wishes love with faith, from God the Father, and from the Lord, who is Jesus Christ. All of these things are seen through this little glimpse through the door that we opened up here to reveal some facts that help us to understand whether we love the Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. It was necessary to go into these things, but we will put them over on the other end of the table for a moment, so that we can consider Paul's prayer of blessing a bit more.

Looking into Paul's blessing, we see that it is a simple blessing, and when we read it, we must be careful not to relegate it to a cliche' ending of a long sermon styled epistle. It is God breathed Scripture, and God wants us to learn spiritual principles from it. And so as we look at this, we need to be mindful of the fact that Paul is stating this in a kind of prayer request. He just finished giving instructions for prayer in the prior verse, and now he is doing it himself. He wishes peace to be to the brothers from God. He really wants there to be unity among the Christians to whom He is writing. It's a blessing request for a certain kind of peace. This is not peace like anti war activists are trying to get, or Amish people are teaching, where you do not resist violent attacks upon your family, or country. Also, this is not the kind of peace where Paul wants to try and bless the Ephesians in such a way that they will never experience persecution. Paul says,

"Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." 2 Timothy 3:12

In Romans 12, Paul urges the body of Christ to be,

"12... persevering in tribulation, ... 14 Bless those who persecute you;" Romans 12:12-14

Paul knows that Christianity is the enemy of the world. He knows that tribulation, and persecution are a natural part of living as the body of Christ. We need to know this fact too. But, the peace that Paul is praying for is the inner personal stability of each member of the body in particular. Paul is wanting God to give the peace and stability among the brothers and sisters in the family of God that he wrote about in the whole epistle. The peace that he is talking about is the peace of being in unity as the body of Christ in absence of strife. All of chapters four and five are dedicated to this, where Paul starts out,

"1 Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, 3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Ephesians 4:1-3

The bond of peace! It is the spiritual glue that so many Christians lack. They have all kinds of Bible knowledge, but they fail when it comes to Christian fellowship. They are strife creating mavericks who put whole sections of Scripture on the shelf when it comes to God's command for peaceful, united, authentic Biblical fellowship. God says, be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and in an amazing twist of the clear command, they do the exact opposite. So what happens? They reap what they sow. They suffer for it. Their family suffers for it. And the body of Christ, which God says needs them, and wants them, and is made for them because God has designed the church to function a certain way, suffers for it too. But notice what else God says to us. God calls it your calling. Folks, we've been called to this. And so Paul wishes this peace upon the Ephesians. This is the blessing that we should all desire. Paul spent a lot of time in this epistle preaching for unity, and preaching against strife. We've studied it intensely over the past several months. Without this peace, we as God's children, are distracted; we are disunited. And when we are disunited, we are disabled. Lack of peace and commitment among Christians is a sinful disease. It's a curse. And so Paul is inspired by the Spirit to wish the needed peace on the brothers that will bless their Christian walk. We should all be wishing peace upon one another to bless our Christian walk. Ask yourself, Is this what you are doing? Be honest with yourself, and with God. When a person does not respect God's specific, intentional, creation of His children through salvation, then that person will not wish peace upon certain members of the body. In fact, there are a lot of people who claim to be saved, but instead of wishing peace upon their brothers and sisters, they actively bring turmoil into the body. How?--because they bring their own curse into the body. They show by their gossip, their back biting, and their negative attitudes that they are demonstrating that they are, in fact, living curses of peacelessness that are on a mission to sin against other Christians in unbiblical actions. Again,

Is this you?

If so, then you need to be honest with yourself, and with God. You need to repent, and you need to make every effort to go forward in the humility of Christ and think of others as being better than yourself, and then be faithful to God in being faithful to your brothers and sisters. This is the only way you will have transformed from a worm that seeks to devour the body, into a beautiful butterfly that flies along with the rest of us in the beautiful glory of the kingdom of Christ--I'm talking about in committed fellowship--in self sacrifice for a group of Christians--and in peace that comes from doing it all God's way. Until you change your mind, you will never see how beautiful your other brothers and sisters are around you. You will always find fault, which is your own fault of violence that God loathes with the rebuke of this whole Ephesians epistle. Paul and Tychicus are on a mission from God to preserve peace, so we need to ask ourselves whether we are the ones who are the kinds of people who are not keeping peace and unity in the body. We need to ask ourselves why we are not like Paul and Tychicus. It is more serious than I think most contemporary Christians realize when people do not do all that they can to maintain peaceful coexistence in the body in co-labor for the Lord. If you find that you are being divisive; you're stirring up strife, or holding grudges, or separating yourself from the biblically defined local church because of so-called hurts, or graceless criticisms, then you need to fall into the peaceful arms of Christ in humbleness, and in the peace and love of Christ, you need to cry out to God in confession of your alien Christianity. You need to seek to be a peace spreader, and a love vessel, and a faith builder upon those Christians that God has sovereignly directed your path to, thus placing them in your life. When Paul wishes, love with faith to the brothers, I think about all of us here this morning who are Christians. Christian brothers already love the body of Christ in the respect that Christians love the church. But there are so many facets to doing the love that we already have in our hearts. We need to pay attention because Paul is talking about going to the next step in abiding in peace with one another even when hard feelings are there because of offenses. When we love one another in blessing, we need to be thinking through with how to be doing intentional love actions toward one another. This is the next step. This takes time, effort, and personal sacrifice in the midst of busy and detached lives. This is the kind of love that Paul is wanting to bless the churches with. The same thing goes for this area where Paul is giving the blessing of faith. Paul knows that the true Christians to whom this letter is written, already have faith. Remember what he said in his opening comments,

"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus:" Ephesians 1:1

Paul says a few verses later that the reason why he prays for them is because,

"I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints," Ephesians 1:15

The point is that Paul already knows that the Ephesians have faith, and are faithful. Paul also knows that faith is a gift. So at the end of the epistle here, Paul is talking about wishing faithfulness upon the Ephesians as a matter of something more. It has to do with the faithfulness in all the hard hits of life. It is the blessing of courage to keep on in fiery zeal for the things of Christ in the midst of the persecution and rejection among their pagan culture. We must remember that those Christians were persecuted by apostate Jews; they were persecuted by pagan Romans, and they were persecuted by their families and friends. They needed the blessing spoken by the apostle, or else Paul would not have spoken it. You and I need the same kind courage and bravery. It is easy to talk of unwavering faith, but when the testing comes, we need to be fully assured of all the details of every fact of our faith. In the blessing of Biblical assurance, our faith becomes manifest as courageous faith; brave faith. So, this is a blessing of encouragement for faith that is strong in standing tall and focused when it is so easy to isolate oneself. I'm talking about the false concept of a so-called private life of Christ.

How many of us here describe our Christianity as best exemplified as a private life of Christ?

How many of us here describe our life as one of secret faith?

Folks, listen to me; We need this blessing, particularly in our generation and culture, and the best way we are going to get it is to study God's word--reading the whole epistle of Ephesians (for example)--making it our ambition to live according to the Word, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Watered down theology and doctrine ain't hacken it. You see, there is so much more to faith. We need manifested faithfulness. Manifested faithfulness, is what describes the really strong Christians of any culture, and any church. The faithful Christians are dedicated to the little things, and they are dedicated to the big things of their spiritual existence. When we see a Christian who is balanced in both, then we are seeing someone who is manifesting being faithful. What I am saying is that this needs to be the description of You and me. But the fascinating detail about what Paul is doing, is that Paul wishes these spiritual things on Christians, and he does it even though these are already marks of true Christians in spiritual regeneration. So, Paul knows that we need to be urged onward; we need to be built up on our most holy faith; we need to be prayed for. We need further blessing in these things. Let's look at Galatians and see the same pattern. Paul says,

"22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,"

Notice that peace, love, and faithfulness are fruits of the Spirit already. If you claim the name of Christ as your Savior, then you better have God's claim on you of the Holy Spirit. All saved people already have the Spirit, so the question is; are we producing the fruits of the Spirit out on the limbs and branches of our lives? This is why Paul goes on, and in a couple of verses, in Galatians 5:25, he says,

"25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit."

In other words, let's see the fruit! This is the same kind of thing that is in Ephesians. We are already blessed. You are blessed already. We already have peace, faith, and love, and all those things. But Paul wants more in the walk. We should all want more. But Paul knows that what he wants must be bestowed. This is important. In other words, as we think about this blessing, and what it means, the most important aspect of this blessing is where Paul says it all comes from. Paul doesn't give this stuff away, because he can't. Understand this. And further, you can't generate it in your own life. You will fail as just another religious fanatic if you do. We must get this from the source. And Paul knows the source, so he wishes all these things upon the Ephesians as coming from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is where we recognize that such blessings are really prayer requests. Whenever you say "God bless you" to someone, you are making a prayer request to God in intercession. God is the one who grants, but Paul is the one who intercedes.

Now I have said all of this so far to bring us to the main passage that I have been wanting to focus upon this morning. Please pay special attention to what I am saying. Everything since the beginning of this sermon has been building up to this point. All of it has been vitally necessary for our question that each of us should be asking ourselves this morning;

"Do I Love the Lord Jesus Christ with Incorruptible Love?"

Okay, what I want to bring our attention to, is that in the flow of the whole Ephesians context, we finally come to the great pond that it all streams into. It is the last 14 words of the epistle. We notice that Paul finally ends the letter with the finishing touch,

"24 Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love."

These parting words are very weighty words. It is a very deep pond indeed. The doctrinal substance of this last prayer request is rich with implications for all who claim to be saved. Just like the first part of the blessing, there is already a truth here that Christians experience without Paul having to wish this blessing upon them. In other words, as God's children, we experience God's grace in salvation already. But just like the rest of the blessing, Paul means more. But before we look at what Paul means, let's look at what Paul does not mean. One thing we need to recognize is that Paul is not wishing this blessing on everyone who shows up in local church fellowship. Simply showing up to church to fellowship with the true children of God, does not mean that the person truly loves God. This also does not mean that when a person is born into a Christian household, that they are raised up with a natural love for God. This also does not mean that a person who is sprinkled in water as a baby, and then is raised among an organization that professes belief in Christ, and then associates their self with that organization, such as Catholicism, or Lutheranism, Methodism, Anglicanism, or Presbyterianism, necessarily means that the person loves God. All those groups sprinkle babies with water. This also does not mean that everyone who claims that they love God, really does love God. We find examples of this kind of language being used to divide the true Christians from the fakes in Colossians 1:23. Paul says in verse 22, that Colossians who are in the church are truly reconciled in Christ's fleshly body through death, in order to be presented before Him, holy and blameless and beyond reproach, but then Paul clarifies what separates the fakes from the real. He says next, if indeed those people continue in the faith, (which is the precepts, doctrines, and realm of Christianity), staying firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that they have heard. The point is that continuance demonstrates what was real all along. Continuance demonstrates incorruptible love. If someone does not continue in the precepts, doctrines, and realm of Christianity by moving away from the gospel that they have heard, then they have turned away from the only good news message that saves. They have demonstrated that they are lost, and were always lost. They were NASAAT which is an acrostic for Never Actually Saved At Any Time. They never truly loved God to begin with. God did not put love for Himself in their hearts. On the other hand, we read of the saved, that;

"... the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Romans 5:5

When it comes to the true love of God, John says that we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. Then John says that God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. There is an incorruptible love that is the love that Christians have for God in Christ, because God abides in all true Christians.

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This leads us to recognize what this last blessing in Ephesians actually means. This blessing is a prayer request for extra unmerited favor from God to be bestowed upon the true Christians at Ephesus. This is why I started the whole exegetical part of this sermon this morning, focusing upon opening the door to examine the language that Paul used to describe faithful Tychicus, and then Paul's same usage of that same language to describe those to whom he intends this blessing prayer. You see, true Christians are the ones who love our Lord, and true Christians are the ones who love our Lord with incorruptible love. This is how Paul knows for sure that his blessing is for real people who have eternal security. In other words, if you are truly saved, then your love for the Lord can not possibly be corruptible. So, what Paul is saying is that this blessing is only for us who are saved. On the flip side, what this means for everyone who does not love the Lord, is that they are cursed. Even the fakes who look like they love the Lord, like Mormon cultists, and Jehovah Witness cultists, and The Way International cultists--they are cursed. They have no right to Paul's blessing because they do not love the authentic Christ to begin with. Paul makes this kind of pronouncement in his closing remarks to the Corinthians church. There, instead of blessing, he curses those who do not love God. He says,

"22 If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed;" 1 Corinthians 16:22

On the other hand, all who love our true Lord (as He is described for us in the Bible), love our Lord in incorruptible love, and so they are God's children, and they are deserving of unmerited favor. Paul is wishing God's favor upon the Ephesians church in a pure, and worthy prayer request. Unmerited favor, is what we all desire as we walk through the trials of life. If you had to rely on your cunning abilities to have God's favor, then you would fail. My dear brothers and sisters, we should always wish God's favor upon the elect. This is incorruptible love. We should always be wanting the very best for any brother and sister in Christ. When we are angry with our brothers and sisters, we should have grace upon them anyway. We should wish that grace would be heaped upon them. When we are judgmental with a brother and sister, we should have grace on them.

Allow me to stretch your minds a bit in the blessing of the incorruptible love of Christ. i realize that there are people in this world that, for some reason, we just don't like something about them. Oftentimes this gets pushed to the point that we don't like the person. But, those Christians that you don't like, have been bought, purchased, and have had the wrath they deserve absorbed in Christ's tortured and executed body. Think about that for a moment. Jesus not only loves all whom He saves, but He also likes all whom He saves. Remember, He is the one who makes His bride acceptable, without spot or blemish. He loves that, but He also likes that.

So what do I mean?

What I mean is that it is so easy to not like another Christian brother or sister because all of us still have little scars of spots and wrinkles on us from Adam and Eve. So, what we should be doing is trying to look past the scars, to the spotlessness and the wrinkle freeness that Christ sees in his cleansing blood, and start to identify the things about that brother and sister that can be appreciated. So, instead of saying I love that Christian, but I don't like them. We should say, I love that Christian, and I am looking for things to appreciate them for as part of the redeemed. Maybe you know a brother or sister that says stupid things. Look beyond the stupidity, and notice the zeal for Christ. A lot of people out of zeal for Christ, do stupid things. The stupid things irritate us, but we should appreciate their zeal, and we should appreciate them. This is just one example, but the point is that you can always make yourself appreciate God's elect. I know this is hard to do, but there are a couple things that will help us to do it. As we wrap up this morning, let me briefly list them. First have the attitude of Christ,

"3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;" Philippians 2:3

How can you not appreciate another Christian when you are regarding them as more important than you are? Secondly, recognize your own self in light of your secret thoughts. What this means is that we need to look at our own areas of pride, and our own failures. If God looked at those things, He would never like you. This is why God looks at Christ in you. Think about that.

Finally, we should do this knowing that if others could find some reason not to appreciate us. All they would have to do is look hard enough. Ultimately, what this deep refreshing pond means for us, is that we who love God, are once saved in eternal spiritual salvation. Because we have the authentic love for God, our love is incorruptible. Make no mistake about it, incorruptible means our love must necessarily endure forever. Paul repeats this same kind of aspect of eternal security in respect to loving Christ, when he says,

"8 in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day;

[Paul has surety in security in His eternal salvation. But then Paul says something else that is amazingly pertinent to our passage under study this morning, and it needs to be mentioned before we finish. Paul goes on and says,

"and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing." 2 Timothy 4:8

Everyone who has loved the appearing of our Lord, is everyone who loves Him with an incorruptible love to where there is laid up for them a crown of righteousness. There are no exceptions. This applies to everyone who loves the appearing of our Lord, who is the same Lord who came as a fertilized egg, grew to the point of birth, where he appeared to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and grew to be a man who would be the ultimate sacrifice for sins, and then resurrected from the dead and appeared to thousands of people before he ascended to the Father. Do you love the appearing of Christ? This is what it means to have incorruptible love my dear brothers and sisters, and so you have the answer to the question;

"Do I Love the Lord Jesus Christ with Incorruptible Love?",

and so Paul's blessing is for you. This morning I urge you to start blessing the other members of the body around you. Start spreading the incorruptible love that you have for God, to the rest of your brothers and sisters. Realize that surety in security in Christ, means that you know that you are saved once and for all time. Be honest with yourself. If you have been trying to please God to be eternally secure, then ask yourself: Have you really relied upon the finished work of Christ on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins? If you are trying to add to the cross to be saved, then you aren't saved. If you are not saved, I urge you to turn to Christ now. Give all your religious acting pride to Him. Ask Him to save you, and He will. He will save you with an incorruptible love, and then you will know with surety that you have an incorruptible love for him.