“Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life,” verse 21.

This verse follows on from what was stated in the previous verse. 

I. IT IS OUR DUTY TO BUILD UP OUR FAITH BY THE HELP OF THE HOLY GHOST AND THEN TO CARE FOR AND PROTECT WHAT WE HAVE ACHIEVED.

This a personal duty. There is no sense in resisting sin and the devil and growing stronger in faith only to throw away what we have been enabled to accomplish. 

Churches must be BUILT and then they have to be MAINTAINED. So it is with us!!

Great David had progressed wonderfully by the help and grace of God BUT then in a short space of time threw it away and suffered a great loss for a time, until he was restored by the Lord.

1.When it was his duty to lead the nation in battle against the enemy he yielded to laziness and stayed at home. “And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem,” 2 Samuel 11:1.

2. He stepped out of the will of God and was open to an attack by the devil. He committed great sin with Bathsheba. It all started by just a ‘look’! “He saw”, 2 Sam 11:2. 

3. Likewise, Achan’s sin and destruction began with a look.“When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it,” Joshua 7:21.

We are warned how easily we can be ruined by the evil inclinations of our own hearts. “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren,” James 1:14-16.

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man,” Matthew 15:19-20. We must guard against the sinfulness of our hearts.

II. BY RESISTING SIN AND OBEYING GOD’S, WE KEEP OURSELVES IN THE LOVE OF GOD.

1. We all know that sin vexes and angers the Lord! “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them,” Genesis 6:5-7. 

Boys and girls, there is a hell because of SIN!

2. It is by keeping the commands of the Lord that we keep ourselves in the love of God. “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him,” John 14:21.

“If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love,” John 15:10. Disobedience is followed by God’s judgment, both in this life but even more so in the life to come! The Christian has been “delivered us from the wrath to come,” 1 Thessalonians 1:10. What a terrible eternity is that which consists of ONLY “wrath to come”!

3. To keep ourselves in the love of God is to set it always before us. To keep it constantly in view, to exercise faith in it, also to meditate and contemplate it. Not like those who constantly “mind earthly things”, with no thought of the love of God toward sinners in sending His Son to die for such.

4. The love of God is limitless! When we are kept in the LOVE of God we enjoy a wonderful peace and contentment. “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus,” Philippians 4:7.

III. THE SURE EVIDENCE OF KEEPING OURSELVES IN THE LOVE OF GOD IS A LOOKING FOR CHRIST’S RETURN.

“Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

1. We cannot contemplate the love of God without thinking upon that day when its fulness will be known! “And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ,” 2 Thessalonians 3:5. Job was so waiting. “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come,”Job 14:14.

2. What a change the love of God will work in us on the day of Christ’s return. “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is,” 1 John 3:1-2.

3. The glory and honour that will be bestowed upon God’s people on that day will cancel out every hardship we have endured in this life. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us,” Romans 8:18. “Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!” Psalm 31:19. “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him,” 1 Corinthians 2:9. It is a time when “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,” Revelation 7:17.

Girls and boys, far above our understanding is that which awaits those who keep themselves in the love of God!