MCC Podcasts
Love - What Does Loving God Look Like?
So I'm Jeff. I'm one of the pastors fired up about this sermon series. We're here last week. Some of you guys got to be here last week. We started this series. We're talking about love. And it's so good. We were like going, apparently the world love does make the world go round. We're celebrating love. Love is a sweet idea. Love is love is God's idea. And we're going to celebrate it. We're going to celebrate it as we talk about. We're going to talk about our love for God. And that's this morning. We're talking about God's love for us. We're talking about marriage in the month of February. We're going to talk about dating. We're going to talk about loving your kid. We're going to talk about loving your enemies and your boss. We're going to talk about love. And we're going to celebrate it because love is so fun and so great. We're going to we're going to we're going to did you hear the walk-in song? We're going to have great walk-in songs. You know, we get this little cover song they do before worship starts. That's pretty sweet. We're going to have fun with that. We're going to have music and video clips. And we're going to cheer on the cheesy movie video clips. Remember we see a cheesy movie. But we're celebrating love. This is this series that we're doing. We're doing it on love and we're celebrating love and all things love because it was God's idea. Come on now. Give me an amen for that. It's so good. And so you don't want to miss the surprises we have in store for this series on love. This morning we're going to go back to a sermon text that we talked about last week where Jesus was asked what's the most important commandment. And Jesus' answer was the most important thing is that you love God. And the second is love your neighbor as yourself. Let's just read that text very quickly. And then oh well here well before we do that. So there you go. You got my sermon title up there. What does loving God look like when Jesus and the text we're about to read says the single most important thing the whole law is summed up in this. You love God. We got to ask the question what does loving God look like? We kind of know or think we know what the loving human thing looks like. It looks like Jerry Maguire. It looks like you complete me. It looks like you had me at hello. It looks like here's looking at you kid. It looks like all but we think we know what human love is about. But when we talk or when Jesus is the most important commandment is you love God. We go I don't know how to do. I'm not sure I know what that means. I know how to love my spouse. I know how to love my kid. I know how to love cheeseburgers. I'm not sure where the God fits into that whole thing. So what does it look like? What we're going to look at today. Let's look at the text from Mark chapter 12. One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating and noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer. He asked them of all the commandments which is the most important. The most important one answered Jesus is this. Hero is real. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind and all of your strength. Then he goes on to add and the second one is a lot like this one. It's love your neighbor as yourself. And then another place where Jesus is recorded saying this in Matthew he says all of the law and the prophets hang on these two things. This is the deal. When asked what's the most important commandment Jesus goes you got to go love God. So in our beginning of our love series we got to figure out what does it mean then and what does it look like to love God because I'm not sure I know exactly what it is that he's talking about. Jesus' answer about what does it look like to love God is embedded right in Jesus' answer to this guy because he parses these words and he says you love God and you love him with what all of your heart all of your soul all of your mind and all of your strength. So already there's a beginning definition there's an unfolding of what this must mean for us that we would love God, the single most important thing. It's these four things. And so we're going to kind of parse some of those and see what that looks like. But here's sort of the clue friends here's sort of the theme. This is about Jesus says it's about loving God with every part of you. That's where he's going. He's not going to say listen you got to love God and it's really four there's four things you got to know. So this is and this isn't a four part sermon. It's really about saying you love God with every part of you. Do you hear that? So if you miss any of the other stuff I'm saying it'll be an awful half hour for you. But you'll get that point which is this is about loving God with every part of us. It's Jesus' idea. You're going to love God with all of you. See some of us love God with the pitter patter of the love songs we sing to him in worship. Some of us love God by digging in and studying Scripture and some of us love God by serving God. But we kind of judge ourselves and then we judge other people about which way is the best way to love God. And the answer is all of them. We love God with every part of us. And this is an important thing to start with because you kind of get a sense when we say boy go love God you instantaneously go into some natural mode for you. And for some people that's heart and desire. For some of you it's mind and thinking and critical and study. For some of you it's serving and hands on and third under your fingernails. But to start with here Jesus goes yeah it's the most important thing love God. But you do it with every part of you. All of it. So let's go in and see more of what these things are talking about. So first thing he says of course love the Lord your God with all of your heart. The heart is the definition of this word is exactly what we think that it would be. It's got these ideas of passion and excitement and desire and delight and warm fuzzies and feelings and emotions. This is about emotions. Heart for sure is about emotions. Any heart people in the room who loves the heart. Come on. Okay put your hand down if you're a woman. You complete me art. That's why. Yeah some of us are heart people but this is what this word is about. We love it with all these feelings and passions and excitement and all that kind of stuff. But there's also this idea and I have it up on the screen there. There's also this idea of resolve. There's this idea of determination. There's this idea of choices. So it's not just volition. I mean sorry it's not just emotion but it's volition. It's also about will and purpose and determination. Did you know that's also part of this idea of heart biblically. Love the Lord your God with all of your emotion but also with all of your will. With all of your volition. It's super important to understand this relationship between emotion and volition. Between desire and resolve when it comes to the heart. Because when you read in the scriptures it isn't always about feeling when it talks about the heart. It's also about conviction. It's about choices. Again it's about resolve. Like as in David had in his heart to build a temple for the Lord. Now most English translations translate that mind. That's how close that's the word heart but the English translation to try to make sense of it for our language translates it mind. That's how close these two concepts are. Not mind like intellect like facts but mind like resolve like will like purpose like determination intentionality. So the emotion and the intentionality are mixed together in this idea of heart. It's a spiral friends of desire and resolve and I love that phrase because I made it up. I really like it but it's a spiral of desire and resolve. Does that work for you? Because this is what happens in the scriptures. This is what Jesus was in fact. Let me say this. This is the phrase. If loving God with all my heart is going to say this. It's going to say I what I say. I know not that. Give me the next slide guys so I can see what it says. There it is. I feel you are and I choose you to be the thing of greatest desire. Sorry grace value. Do you see that? Loving God says I feel you are desire emotion and I choose you to be. That's volition. Resolve. The thing of greatest value. See this is what Jesus was talking about when Sermon on the Mount when he said where your treasure is there your heart will be. Where your treasure is there your heart will be. Think about what that phrase means Jesus said. Where your treasure is there your heart will be. Remember he was saying don't store for yourselves treasures in heaven. Sorry earth where moth and rust destroy thieves can steal stuff. Don't store it for yourselves treasures there. Store it for yourselves treasures in heaven. Then he says for where your treasure is your heart will be. Where you've stored up treasure where you've made investments where you've determined value listen church where you said that's of great value to me where you have resolved and invested then your heart will follow where your treasure is your heart will be also. And so we have this spiral of desire and resolve because we think loving is God is all about feeling it but friends that is awfully difficult for a God a universe to command you to have an emotion and have it more. How do you obey that command? We determine and place our treasure and resolve what is of significance and of importance to us and when we do that our heart follows. Do you know that? Do you know that that's how it works in life? Wherever you have placed your value your treasure your investment your determination wherever you have done that then your heart starts to follow it everywhere it works that way in our lives. You don't have feelings for stuff willy nilly at least not for very long it's never just about emotion it's emotion and volition it's the spiral of desire and resolve. See this has happened in every thing that is important to me it happened in baseball Matt my baseball buddy my A's buddy listen happened in baseball I had some desire about baseball I got all infatuated went to a couple games with my dad how it had all those warm fuzzies about baseball loved it loved to smell the grass love to look at it I'm a typical baseball fan who loves that idea of the whole baseball idea but what happens is I started to give myself to it I started to study I started to read and understand stats I started to follow the players I met a few players because some of them lived in my neighborhood in Oakland when I was growing up and all the sudden I started valuing these relationships and my players and my team and what was going on in the details I started valuing all of it and my heart followed it but here this here's the spiral listen as I valued it more I felt more for it and as I felt more for it I made more investments into it wouldn't I and as I made more investments my treasure was there then my heart followed and the more my heart was there the more I put treasure in it and the more that happens in everything in our lives it's happened in my relationship with my wife at the beginning there were these desires that's February you do not want to miss February by the way we're doing a month on marriage um there was this desire but friends we were not born into bliss Linda and I hello anybody want to be honest you complete me honey which means you're opposite of me which means you're profoundly irritating no I just so that's the deal so so there's these desires at first but then somewhere along the line out of that desire you say that is valuable to me and I resolve to put my heart here I resolve to invest here I resolve I'm determined to live a life of marriage and I've given myself to it and when you give yourself to something your heart follows it you with me on that and so my heart would follow and as my heart got invested more in this relationship and I treasured her more than I had more feelings and more feelings I have the more I invest in that relationship and this is why she's the best wife ever anywhere because that's exactly what happened over time is that we spun that was just trying to make up for the irritating comment we we invested and we got in a spiral of resolve and desire it's exactly the same way in my relationship with God we were not born to bliss it's hard to love a God that you can't see that sometimes you can't understand that often you can't figure him out it's you it's hard when your whole view of who God is comes through like a parent who isn't healthy or a pastor who lets down the church or like how how do you just look but we resolve to say this is important this God who created me and called me and saved me this is important and I'm going to put my treasure here I'm going to invest in it and I resolve to give my life to this God when that happens friends where your treasure is there your heart will be also and the more feelings the more heart the more passion the more excitement the more some of those words we have for God then the more we invest in it and then the more we invest in it the more feelings we have that's what it looks like to love God with all of our heart it's the spiral of emotion and volition of desire and of resolve so what does that look like it looks like friends getting in touch with our feelings but also getting in touch with what we know to be of value and what we resolve to be true about ourselves with God when we come and sing worship songs we don't expect that you're going to have to have this overwhelming emotional experience we think your emotions will be a part of it but we're calling you to be a part of this this is just an illustration right these songs because part of heart we think is you know we're supposed to feel emotions in singing well I'm just giving you this as an example when you come we're saying will you resolve that the things we're singing about are true and should be true about one's heart and about God's goodness and about us serving him and are giving our lives to him and about how great God is we say this is true God and we give ourselves to that truth and when my heart's there then my feelings start to follow so we're not asking did you have an emotional experience we're asking did you resolve that those things are true and the words coming out of your mouth are things you want to be true in your life and that you want to be more true in your life and that are true about God whether you felt it or not and friends people who do that out of obedience and faithfulness to God their heart follows and they love God from the emotions to it's both but we work that through I'm sitting over here singing that song oh how he loves us I love that song I'm singing that song it's so great I'm singing that song and then I go dang I'm glad I got new shoes those other ones were so worn out and I'm like these two look pretty good those really I didn't know and I don't know how bad those other ones were for what you know and you guys are all into the Lord okay if that's not you 22 times during that first half hour you're not normal but I come back and I go no no no I resolve that this is true that this is the cry of my heart I'm going to say words now to you God that I don't naturally feel but I want them to come out of my mouth because I want them to be true and they are true and I want them to be more true do you not do that in every relationship you have okay you with me and all that I'm going to move on the spiral of desire and resolve that's what it looks like to love God with all of our heart oh I got to tell you this one part though about this he says all your heart he says all about all of them but if I had double the time to preach I'd go down this road all of your heart go home this week and look up in a concordance the word jealous in your Bible for God says I am a jealous God in fact he says my name is jealous it is my identity what does that mean I looked it up in Webster's it means he is intolerant of rivalry apprehensive of the loss of another's exclusive devotion that is God jealous for our heart that we give it to him and him alone we put our treasure in heaven and then our heart follows love and God with our heart second thing love God with all of your soul loving God with all of your soul this is what soul is soul is our identity it's the real me soul is the word for identity the real me in genesis if you were to read this creation story genesis to God the scripture says that God created man he gathered the dust of the earth and he created a human being a man out of this he created a human out of this dust and then he breathed his life into him and that dust that form man became and the words in our English Bible says a living being and the word their friends is soul some of your translations would say this so in other words God took dirt he took a form he took something very earthy and he breathed his life in and now it was a soul you see your soul is your true God given identity your soul your your you are not your body you are not the roles that you play you are not the definitions that you give yourself you are a soul we don't have a soul we are a soul it says in scriptures and so that is your true life that has been breathed into you from God do you hear that it's a life that comes from God so it signifies our true identity as a creation of a loving God who's intimate with us who has a call in our lives who has given us a life to live who has called us into this time and in this place the body is not the real me it's ashes to ashes and dust to dust it's the dirt it's the life that God breathed in that was my name before eternity and that is my gifts and that is my calling and that is all the days ordained for me before one of them ever came to be this is the me the real me and so when we come to the soul we say what does loving God with my soul look like loving God with my soul says I will be the real me with you I will be the real me with you I won't be a shell of me I won't be a caricature of me I won't be a a copier of my neighbor I will be the me that you breathe into me my identity my true identity my eternal identity the one that will live forever I will be the real me with you now I don't I don't mean to mean just this but but I mean this too I'll be authentic with you for sure the real me I'm going to be authentic how could we afford not to be authentic with a personal God who created us knows us knows every thought in our heads knows every thought before we think it knows everywhere that comes out of our mouths knows every part of every day's action like how how would we not be authentic with that God my friends the scriptures tell us that God can handle your authenticity and your honesty he can handle who you really are because he already knows it okay let's every just let go of that you know bondage we put ourselves in when we forget that I think we're faking God out so it means authenticity the real me but it means more than that it means that instead of being a shell instead of being just a body instead of being something that's taking up space ready for this it is my true identity my destiny is the real me the God given destiny what God called me to actually be in this place at this time in my life that's what we love God with we love God with our destiny this is where Jesus' words make so much sense in Matthew 16 where he said listen whoever wants to save his life and the word their life is the word soul and maybe your Bible has this word soul whoever wants to save his soul will lose it in other words whoever wants to try to figure out how to live his own life create his own identity be the master of who he really is whoever wants to save his life make your own life out of your world make your whoever wants to save his soul will lose it but whoever gives up his life loses his life for my sake we'll find it for what will it benefit you the scripture says if you gain the whole world but forfeit what your soul you cannot gain everything and give up who you really are and what you were destined to be your daily walking in obedience to the God who created you by the salvation that he provided through Christ and the power of his holy spirit in you your daily walking with that God is your destiny you are the only you created in your world for such a time as this that's you and Jesus said you love the Lord your God with all that you what does that look like it looks like getting in touch with what we were really on earth to do and not getting lost in anything else the illustration I gave this morning and don't tell him he's at work friends Tommy my son Tommy is my illustration right now he's not here today my son Tommy 17 years old he's trying to figure out what his identity is right remember that we're all still trying to figure it out go to figure it out Joe got that figured out we're all trying to figure out our identity but when you're 17 it's a crucial time because you're like who am I am I the funny guy my the athlete my the smart guy my the dumb guy am I the mess up am I the cute boy what am I what am I we try on all those identities for size and my son is trying to figure that out and the other day looking at his Facebook page and when I saw that list of lives in Nevada goes to San Marin High School one of the ways he identified himself was man of God and I'm unspeakably proud of him to go public in public school with who he wants to be I give you that example not to brag on my well yes I do I am bragging on my kid I give you that example not to brag on my kid but to tell you listen if a 17 year old can say I will not be just the athlete I will not be the guy who gets all the laughs I will not be a guy who's a lazy lazy video game like I I this is my identity there's only one you friends one you destined for your life for such a time as this and we love God by living that out and nothing less than that we got to get in touch with where's he got me and how do I live that out that's what it looks like third one and we'll zoom through these love the Lord your God with all of your mind love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind the mind is critical reasoning clear thinking understanding knowing what is true that's what these words are mind is about knowing the truth reasoning and it isn't just this is actually this word that Jesus used love him with all your mind he meant he said love him with all your critical mind the word he used is sort of a hyper mind it's like a more it's not just mind it's like love him with I mean with all of your mind the word literally means both sides of your mind what it means is you look you be committed to looking at truth from every direction isn't that good you look at all sides of it I mean you don't just understand the facts you understand the essence of the truth that's essentially what Jesus is saying don't just get the facts you understand the essence of the truth from every angle so when we say love God with I'm gonna love God with all my mind we're saying I will steep myself in what is true about you God and about me I will steep myself in what is true about you I will understand it from every facet I will bring all of my questions and all of my doubt and all of my my my angst and I will steep myself in who you are and what this life is all about that's how I'm going to love God with my mind some of us you guys think that the opposite is true that loving God is you know the proverbial checking your mind at the door well I don't want to ask all the hard questions so I might expose something the opposite is true he goes you bring it because you're supposed to understand the truth from every angle how does that not of course please a personal God who created us and said you come know me you come know the reality of who I am and the depth of who I am and the beauty of who I am and the wisdom of who I am and all of my plans and how life works you come know it then you bring all those questions isn't that free for some of us that are thinkers that's how we love God with all of our mind he he said through the prophet Jeremiah let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the rich man boast of his riches or the strong man boast of his strength but let him who boast boast about this that he understands and knows me that I'm the Lord and that I exercise this is what I am I exercise kindness and justice and righteousness on the earth for in these I delight he said that's the guy who needs to boast that he understands who I am and what I do that's how we love God with all of our mind and that truth friends that truth becomes transformative remember what Paul said to the Romans in in Romans chapter 12 he said do not be conformed any longer the pattern of this world but be read be transformed by what the renewing do you know it of your mind when we steepen the truth then our lives change what does that look like it looks like doing the hard word of considering reflecting and asking reasoning and dialoguing and listening and doubting and getting answers to our questions it's doing the hard work we become experts in God's word which is primarily the place we get God revealed to us we become experts in God's word that's why I use the word steeped because I've used that in other contexts to say are we steeping in God's word relating it affect us and what we know to be true about God and life and ourselves when we live in falsehood and misunderstanding about the person of God about his character about our world about the way humans work about the salvation in Christ about what obedience looks like when we live in ignorance or misunderstanding we dishonor God but we love him when we've looked at it from every angle and we know the truth the best gift I ever got how this looks to me is that then every day you get in your word you get in the Bible and you get with a group of people who talk deeply and reflect and think and ask questions we live like that you got to live like that the best gift I ever received was a college community that did that and guys who said hey why don't we memorize God's word let's remember let's why don't we memorize the book of Philippians together and you know who's going to be like yeah I love God enough to do that I know you go okay because you're young and all and so much of God's word has gotten now steeped in me 30 years later that I can't help I can't help but to be drawn back to scriptures and to be reflecting on God's wisdom and God's truth all the time invest ourselves in the truth and in the reflection on that truth that's how we love God with all of our mind love a God with your heart our soul with all your mind and then last with all your strength love God with all your strength and of course strength is what it says and it is your abilities your gifts but it's also your faithfulness and your obedience it's bringing your strength it's cowboying up and doing the right thing with everything that you have in you all your talents all your wisdom all your gifts but just also with your brute strength that's what that's about that's what it's supposed to mean he's all you bring your strength to the table when you know the thing that God has for you to do then you man up and you do it that's what this feel is in this thing come bring your strength so loving God with all my strength says this God whatever I have I bring I will not hold back whatever I have I bring how much of our strength is required friends all of it and no less we never shortchange God we bring our strength to the table how much of our strength is required all of it and no less but listen and no more no more is required of us friends than all the strength that we have or that we happen to have see we can get up here and say cowboy up and all that kind of stuff and that's true and let's do that but the thing about the scriptures is when it talks about God's strength when it talks about strength it doesn't ever talk about our strength it mostly talks about God's strength he goes look at if you go teach teach with the words God provides if you speak speak with the words God provide if you encourage encourage with the encouragement God provides Paul said to the church I can do all things through him who gives me strength later on to the Corinthian church Paul said his strength is made perfect in what my weakness we are called to bring all of our strength such as it is no less than what God gives us and no more than what we have and our merciful God meets us in that and empowers us this is the kind of idea in the scriptures behind the mustard seed of faith man I got this much faith God he's like you got that much faith we can move mountains you bring it to me this the idea of the widows might she gave a little bit but man it was all she had this is the idea of the little boy who brought the fish in the loaves when he was going to feed the crowds he brought all he brought just this much basically we go I got this much Jesus can you do anything with that it's all I got Jesus goes can I do anything with that let's rock this and so we come and bring everything and Jesus meets us in that and epic things happen we love to learn our God with all of our heart with all of our soul and all of our mind and all of our strength to all of us every part of us again it's not it's not just these four the point of the sermon friends is we love him with every part of us and if you're a singer or a steadier or a server and you also add these other things to what loving God looks like and in the end we simply become people who say God it's all about you and all of me is here and that's what we do as a church pray that God would continue to challenge us we walk through this love series about what it looks like for us to love our God