This was Christ. Our natural feelings and desires are selfish. Jesus has given us the clearest example of unselfish love the universe has ever witnessed. "For God commendeth his love to us"--that is, he shows the exceeding greatness of it--"in that, when we were enemies, Christ died for us." I do not believe that we ever, in this world, can fully understand the merits of our Savior's life, death and resurrection. Enough for us to know that he has opened a "new and living way" by which we may come back to our heavenly Father and be his children again. Do you know that Adam was a son of God? Luke calls him so. But he, like Esau after him, sold his birthright, lost the divine image in which God had created him, and fell from his sonship. But now we read: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not, with him also, freely give us all things?" The phrase, "all things," as here used, includes a restoration to our former sonship with God. We, as the children of God, are exhorted to follow in the steps of our blessed Lord. This not only means that we are to shun evils and bear reproach, but it also means that we are not to live unto ourselves and for ourselves alone, but unto him and his people; for "He went about doing good." John says: "We love him because he first loved us." We, who are here assembled in his name, can truthfully repeat this language. But how do we prove to ourselves and the world that we DO love him? It is by letting our light shine. Men do not light a candle and put it under a bushel. A city on a hill cannot be hid. Brethren, I hope we have all made clean "the INSIDE of the cup and the platter;" for this is the only way in which the outside can be kept clean. A pure life flows out of a _clean_ heart, and it can come from no other source. We show our love to the Lord by observing his ordinances: by baptism, by washing one another's feet, by partaking with each other of the Lord's Supper, by communing with him in his broken body and shed blood, symbolized by the bread and wine: next, in "denying ourselves of all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." Think on this last text a little bit. "Soberly" means _calmly sincere_; not moved by fits of excitement. "Righteously" means _doing right_; right toward God by obedience, and right toward men in our dealings with them and in our influence upon them. Many a brother has ruined his power for good by not being _watchful_. He told "jokes." He delighted in frivolous, trifling things. He put on a square face at church, to be sure; but a little disappointment would lengthen it fearfully, and a little fun or glee would broaden it out of all Christian shape.