People who are not Christians endure great pain, and they endure great sorrow, and they do it by gritting their teeth. Or in England, we do it with a stiff upper lip. Paul is saying, I want something better than that. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick. And if you’ve listened before, you’ll know that Colin is Scottish. So, Colin, do you identify with that? Oh, yes. You’ve got the Scottish, and you’ve got the English, and you’ve got the Irish, and you’ve got the Welsh all mixed in. And there are very distinct cultures among these, you know. So, Colin, as a Scotsman, does that mean you have the stiff upper lip? No. I mean, here’s the Scottish version of the old story. Two Scotsmen get together, and they make some money. Two Irishmen get together, they have a fight. Two Welshmen get together, and they form a male voice choir. And two Englishmen, well, the problem for them is there isn’t a third person to introduce them to each other. That is the stiff upper lip, you see. Why are we talking about this here today for this reason? You know, there have always been, in different cultures and in different generations, people who simply got through by pretending it didn’t hurt. You know, the old stoic, stiff upper lip. And that is not at the heart of Christianity. It’s not simply getting by by pretending it doesn’t hurt. What Paul is speaking to us about is that our hearts may be directed into the love of God. What would it mean for your heart to be directed into the love of God? For the love of God to permeate your heart. That’s not stiff upper lip. That’s finding a resource to enable you to stand in the middle of perhaps very great difficulty that you’re facing. So this is something very wonderful we’re going to talk about today. So we’re looking today at 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 in verse 5, as we continue our message, The Love of God and the Patience of Christ. Here’s Colin. I’ve got two more things here this morning. One is I want to give you some real life examples of the love of God flooding a person’s soul. And I’m doing this so that you will be encouraged to pray for more than you may already have experienced. I want to give you some examples. And then briefly I want to give you some pointers as to how you can move forward from where you are now in terms of experiencing more of the love of God and the patience of Christ in your own soul. So one or two examples. I’ve deliberately chosen very striking examples because I’m trying to prise our minds open from the sort of been there, done that mentality in which so many Christians think they’ve got nothing more to experience because they’re already converted. Let me give you the example of John Wesley. Wesley was a pastor. He had preached in England, had preached in Georgia here in the States. He then returned to England. He was very discouraged. Something happened to him as a minister on the 24th of May 1738 while he was listening, of all things, to a man reading the introduction to Luther’s lectures on Romans in Aldersgate Street in London. Some of you will know this. I quote from Wesley, about a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ. He’s talking about the man reading this stuff from Luther from a lectern. And as he’s reading this, these famous words, Wesley says, was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. Now what’s so striking about this, friends, is that this man had been a preacher for years. And there he is in Aldersgate Street, and suddenly this overwhelming assurance of the love of God fills his soul. He had a new sense of its sweetness. And his life and his ministry were transformed from that time on. Let me secondly give you the example of Jonathan Edwards. 1737, Edwards rides out on his horse into the woods, as he did quite often, because that was where he had time alone with God in prayer. I quote from Edwards, I had a view that was for me extraordinary of the glory of the Son of God, and his wonderful, great, full, pure, and sweet love. You see, what he’s saying is this man, and he has this extraordinary ministry, and he says there was this one day in 1737, and I’m out there in the woods, and I saw the love of Christ as I’d never seen it before. I had a view of it, that’s the language that he uses. Its sweetness came home to my soul. It lifted his life. Let me give closer to home the story of Dwight Lyman Moody, D.L. Moody, Moody Bible Institute. 1871, Moody’s church, the building is destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire. And so he goes to New York, and he’s looking for financial assistance, and he’s walking the streets, and I quote, I began to cry as never before for a greater blessing from God. The hunger increased, and I kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with his spirit. Well, one day in the city of New York, oh, what a day, I cannot describe it. I seldom refer to it. It is almost too sacred an experience to name. I can only say God revealed himself to me, and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand. Extraordinary statement. I’ll give you perhaps the most intense description, at least that I’m aware of, of anything like this. It comes from Blaise Pascal. You know the name of Pascal? And Pascal was a Roman Catholic. Pascal was a mathematician. He was a scientist. And the reason that I quote this last example before we move on to some application for us is that it would be easy for some of us to dismiss this and say, well, of course, there are certain more emotional types of people, and that’s not me. Well, I ought to be awfully careful here, but we’re talking with Pascal about a mathematical genius and a scientist. Not noted for, I’ve got to be careful, haven’t I, but not noted for extremes of emotion. Pascal had an extraordinary experience of the love of God overwhelming his soul that lasted for about two hours one night, and it changed his life. I mean, these are things that lift people’s lives and expand the capacities of their souls, make them folks who love God more and love people more. And what happened was that after these two hours and this overwhelming experience, he scribbled down in just short lines on a little piece of paper what it was that he had seen, what he had felt, what had been in his mind as his soul had been so overwhelmed. This little scrap of paper that he had scribbled immediately after the event was so precious to him that he sewed it inside his coat. Isn’t that beautiful? And he carried it with him all the days of his life. And it was found after he died, still sewn on the inside of his coat. And I’ll read you from the words that he wrote. This day of grace, 1654, from about half past ten at night to about half after midnight, and then just line after line. Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. Not the philosophers or the scholars. Security. Feeling. Joy. Peace. God of Jesus Christ. Greatness of the human soul. Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, may I never be separated from him. What had happened to Blaise Pascal? In an intense way, the Lord had directed his heart into the love of God. What happened? Now, I say again, folks, that I am giving to you these intense examples. Unusual examples. Remarkable examples. Because I want to shake you out of spiritual lethargy. I want you at least to seek something more than you’ve got today. Because wouldn’t it be a tragedy if between here and heaven, you never knew any more of the love of God in your own experience. You never tasted any more of its sweetness than you taste right now. Wouldn’t that be a tragedy? Flatline in your spiritual life. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and our message, The Love of God and the Patience of Christ. It’s part of our larger series, Staying the Course When You’re Tired of the Battle. And don’t forget, if you ever miss one of our messages or if you’d like to go back and listen again, you can always do that. Come to our website, that’s openthebible.org.uk. There you can download any of the previously broadcast messages. And now you can also find our messages as podcasts. Go to your favourite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to receive regular updates. Back to the message now, here’s Colin. So the question then with which we conclude in these last minutes is simply this. And it’s the obvious question. How can I experience more of God’s love and Christ’s patience? That’s the question for us, isn’t it? If we’re taking this seriously, this verse, we’re applying it to our lives, we’re making this prayer our own. How can I experience more of God’s love and Christ’s patience? That’s the question for me today. That’s the question to which I need an answer. And let me give you the answer in these three simple ways. It’s number one. If you want to experience more of Christ’s love and patience, become dissatisfied with your present spiritual experience. Cultivate, to put it another way, a holy discontent with where you are. The person who prays this prayer that’s before us today is looking for something more than he or she already has. Lord, direct my heart into your love. This is of huge importance for the church today and especially the evangelical church. We live in a been-there-done-that culture, and the great danger is that we cultivate a been-there-done-that Christianity in which thousands of people go through life saying, I know that God loves me. Yes, I know that Christ died on the cross. Yes, I know that my sins are forgiven. Now what’s next? And one day someone stands up in a meeting and says, Do you really believe that God loves you? And you know what? Your own shallowness is exposed. A.W. Tozer says, We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found him, we need no more seek him. And then he adds, In the midst of this great chill, there are some who will not be content with shallow logic. They want to taste, to touch with their hearts the wonder that is God. And Tozer says, I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. So do I. I want to deliberately encourage this mighty longing after God. So I say to you, Do not settle for a faith in which you cannot feel the love of God or the patience of Christ. Cultivate a holy discontent. If you go out from today saying, I am dissatisfied with where I am in the Christian life, that would be a great outcome, a great response to this sermon. Great response. Number two. Ask God to direct your heart into his love. It’s a prayer, so use it. Make it your own. Isn’t it wonderful how we’re seeing as we go through the Bible, we’re being taught how to pray. Last week, start praying that the gospel may run. I hope you’ve been praying that this week. Here’s something else to add to your prayers as we go forward. Pray that your heart may be directed into the love of God and into the patience of Christ. I know some of us carry an awful lot of baggage on this one. When you think about God, your first instinct is to assume that he is angry, that he is against you, that he is condemning you. If you were to picture God at all, it would be with a frown on his face. And you know if that’s you, many people struggle with this. And I say, you need this prayer. Listen to the wise counsel of Richard Sibbes, a great writer and pastor from an earlier age. He says this, present God to yourself as he is presented in the gospel. Present God to yourself as he is presented in the gospel. And then he says, here’s why. The devil will put other colors upon God. The devil presents him as a tyrant, a judge, and a revenger. But please remember, says Sibbes, that the devil does this because he hates God. The devil will always be suggesting to you that God is a tyrant, always suggesting to you that he wears a frown on his face towards you. But remember when the devil suggests that to you, and that’s where it comes from, that he’s suggesting this because he hates God. So here’s what you have to do. You have to present God to yourself as he is presented in the gospel. That is, he’s the one who sends his son for me. He’s the one who raises his son for me. He’s the one who through his son justifies me. Present God to yourself as he is in the gospel. John Owen, to reinforce this, the great John Owen writes these words, so long as the father is seen as harsh, judging, condemning, the soul will be filled with fear and dread every time it comes near to God. But when God is seen as a father filled with love, then the soul will be filled with love to God in return. And again, all that we learn of God will only frighten us away from him if we do not see him as loving and merciful to us. But if your heart is taken up with the father’s love, it cannot help but choose to be overpowered and conquered and embraced by him. You see how important this prayer is? Oh, says Paul, may the Lord direct your heart into the love of Christ. Don’t let the devil paint God in these other colors. Some of you have thought for years of God, even though you worship, even though you believe in your heart, you think of God as cold and aloof and harsh and condemning. And that is so deeply rooted in your mind. And you need this prayer. Father, direct my heart into your love. Ask God for this. Go on, ask. Until the warmth of his love does to your heart what the warmth of the sun has done to piles of snow this week, melts so that everything you see around is utterly transformed. Become dissatisfied with your present spiritual experience. Ask God to direct your heart into his love. And lastly, gaze into the love of God in Jesus Christ. I suppose he uses that language, I love it. The gaze of the soul. He got it from Psalm 27 in verse 4, I’m sure, where the psalmist says, one thing I’ve asked of the Lord. Here’s passion and direction. One thing I’ve asked of the Lord. Here it is, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and may gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. I want to have my gaze upon him. I want all that’s in him to be filling my soul. By the way, have you noticed this? People who don’t like each other, glance. Right? Okay? People who do like each other, look. People who love each other, gaze. Gaze. I’ve been gazing into this lady’s eyes for 30 years. Don’t ever want to stop. Watts used another word to say the same thing in that great hymn, when I survey the wondrous cross. So, survey, gaze, ponder, meditate on, behold the love of God, the patience of Christ. Write it down in that notebook every time you see it in the Bible. Reinforce it in your soul. May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and into Christ’s patience. Now, there are two ways in which you may respond to the scriptures today. One is that something is awakened in you. Deep calls to deep. And maybe you will be saying today with your open Bible, I want more of what he’s talking about. That’s what I want. And for you, this is like the sound of a church bell. It’s drawing you in to seek after God. I just say to you, settle it today. Settle it today that you will pursue a sweeter taste and a deeper experience and a clearer glimpse of the love of God and the patience of Christ. And I just say to you, as that has been placed in your soul today, go after it and don’t ever stop. Don’t ever stop your life pursuit. No more of the love of God and the patience of Christ in this soul and for this soul to be expanded by the very knowledge of it. Go after it and don’t ever stop. Some of you may be thinking, when is he going to wind up and let us go get a cup of coffee? And for you, if you’re saying that, and there will be a few who just, what in the world is all this? If that’s you today, then I say that today’s message is not like the sound of a church bell for you. It’s more like the sound of an alarm clock for you, waking you up. And if there is no response within you to the love of God, I ask you, should you not be concerned about the state of your own soul? I hope that you will go out of this worship center today, if that has been how it is with you this morning, and you will ask this question. You will say, what is wrong with me that I have no interest in the love of Christ? What is wrong with me? Here are people all around me and they are hungry and thirsty for God and I’m not. Why? Why am I so satisfied? Perhaps as the alarm sounds for you, God will use it to awaken you today from the deadness of spirit in which you have been asleep for far too long. What a great way to finish today’s message. You’ve been listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message, The Love of God and the Patience of Christ. And maybe as you’ve been listening, you recognize that an alarm has been going off, which you just ignored. There’s a point where you can’t do that any longer. I hope you’ll take the opportunity to talk to your heavenly father about it and to admit that you’ve not been open to receive his love. If you can do that, please also go and talk to someone about it, maybe to a trusted Christian friend or family member, or go along to a local Christian fellowship. Talk to the pastor there or any of the members of that fellowship. They’ll be happy to share in your experience and pray with you about it. And write and tell us about it. You can email us at hello at openthebible.org.uk Open the Bible is supported on this station and on the internet by regular donations from our listeners, and we’d like to thank you for that. This month, if you’re able to set up a new donation in the amount of £5 per month or more, we’d love to send you two copies of a book. It’s called More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell. Colin, give us an idea of what’s in this book. Well, the first thing to say is that it has stood the test of time. This book has been around for more than 40 years and God has used it in the lives of many people. It’s sold more than 15 million copies. That is remarkable. Now, someone might say, well, a book that was written 40 years ago is hardly going to be relevant to today. So here’s the good news. It has been updated to speak to some of the questions that we are facing today, and that work has been done by Josh McDowell’s son, Sean McDowell, and it’s been done really well. So this new edition is going to bring a time-tested book to a new generation, and it’s a marvellous story. Josh McDowell started out by asking some fundamental questions of his own life, and these are questions that never change. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? And he was challenged by some friends to make a serious investigation into the claims of Christianity. He started out on that thinking that he was going to disprove Christianity, and what he found was that the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ laid hold of his mind and of his heart, and that story is told very wonderfully in this book. So this is a very useful book, both for believers, so that we will be better equipped to testify to Christ, and also for anyone who has serious questions about Christianity and is looking for answers more than a carpenter, updated after 40 years for a new generation, this is really a special gift, and I’m delighted that we have the opportunity of sharing this book this month. We’d love to send you two copies of this book if you’re able to set up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more. For more helpful details of the offer and to give online, go to openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and I hope you’ll be able to join us again soon. If you knew that Jesus Christ would return in the next seven days, would you go to work this week? Discover what some people in the Bible were saying about it next time on Open the Bible.