Love God
Back to the Basics • Sermon • Submitted
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· 4 viewsBack tothe basics series where the stuents will learn to love God and Love others
Notes
Transcript
Me
Me
Tonight we are kicking off this new year by strting a new seried called “Back to the Basics”
Adn what better way to go back to the basic than by going back to our childhood.
You know, growing up my mom had a bunch of sayings that were hers, and my own, “words to live by”. Do your parents have any phrases or words to live by?
WAIT for response
You see, my mom has Lots. Words that have become so ingrained in my mind that they are a part of my life.
Here are just a few of them:
Not my circus, not my monkey’s
Life’s about choices and consequnces
Don’t engage crazy
But there other other phrases that we probably have all heard like:
“When you have kids, you’ll understand”
“ I just want what’s best for you”
“I’m doing this becsue I love you”
Maybe your Dad has said this one, “I’m not sleeping, im just resting my eyes”
We
We
It’s phrases like these that we et ingrained in our mind, when we hear them we are taken back to specific momments in our life, meomtns tha stick with us for a while.
You see, this was the same with the ancient Isralties, they ahd certain phrases that were passed down for many gernations. These phrases were influetnial and intsramental in the growth of the community and people. They were ingrained in the culture.
You see, the ancient israelites wer steeped in tradtion. They knew the law of God so well. IN fact, there were groups of people called the Pharisees and the saducees that were devoted to the teaching and reading of scripture and the law. People thought aht if anyone was to kow God, it would be them. These guys ate, slept, and breathed, anything to do about God.
In Jesus’ time, Sadducees controlled the two most important institutions of Jewish society: The Jerusalem Temple (known as Herod’s Temple) and the Sanhedrin.
The Sanhedrin was the governing body for both religious and legal issues of the Jews. The leader of the Sanhedrin was a High Priest given king-like authority—and was almost always a Sadducee.
While the Pharisess were more concerned about doctrine and tradtion. They were all about remainng pure.
Mark 7:3-4 says that "The Pharisees do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles." Thus, we are also told of the Pharisees' concern for washing (ceremonial cleansing) and observance of "the traditions of the elders, " a description of the Oral Law.
And There was one moment in particular when Jesus was preaching to people and the pharisees showed up. You see, Jesus had just stumped the saducees, and so the pharisees thought that it now their turn to try and catch Jeus in saying somehting wrong.
Matthew 22:34-37 says this But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
Well thats pretty simple, Jesus sums up the entire law with these two sentences. Love God, love others.
Tonight we are going to dive into the first part of this commadmentm whihc is Love God.
You see, when Jesus said, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” He wasn’t making up a new law that was revolutionary for the people, infact Jesus was actaully quoting Moses.
God
God
IN the book of Deuteronomy, everyone say “Deuteronomy”, this is the fifth book of the bible by the way. We find Moses giving his farewell speech to the Israelites. Moses knows that his time is almost up and so he is preparing Israel for when he is gone.
Deuteronmy 6:4-5 Moses delares a Jewish creed that became ingrained in the hearts of Israelite for hundreds of genreations.
Listen to what says, shouting for a place of authirty, Moses yells out
“Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.
You see, this command to love, which means to obey, is dependent on the declaration of who God is Moses said, “God is our God,” that is, the God of no other people and the only God for Israel. The phrase “the LORD alone” (see note on 6:4) affirms this conviction that only God is Israel’s God. This is not an admission of the existence of other gods; rather, it is a declaration that God alone is worthy of worship (von Rad 1966a:63). In this theological context, love has to do with loyalty, commitment, and obedience, not just affection.
BUt lets Dig a little deeper. You see, The fullness of such love is seen in its comprehensive expression—the whole heart, the whole soul, the full strength.
“Heart” reflects your emotions and thoughts. So all of our emotions and thoughts,we love the God with. Emotional.
“Soul” describes the person himself or herself, the essential being, especially the desires or longings. Spirtiual.
“Strength” is not an element of one’s being, but of human activity, what one does. Physical.
With that being said, the command is to be obedient to God with fullness of being and totality of effort
You
You
You see, we, you and I are called to love God with everything within us. All of our heart, all of our soul, all our strength.
In every area of our lives, emotional, physical, and spiritual. Yet so oftne, you might be like me and fnd ourselves only lving God with aprt of our hearts, our intellect our thoughts. Maybe you would say “Well I love God spiritaully, and somewhat with my heart, but my actions....probably don’t refelct that as much”
I’m going to challenge you here, if you aren’t loving God through your actions, do you really think you love whim with your emotions and thoughts? No.
So what’s holding you back from loving God fully in all those areas of your life? Is it fear, is it pride, is it shame?, It might be a “secret” sin that you have been battling for and hiding for years.
Friends, just a sidenote on that last point, You can’t defeat the sins you enjoy playing with.
Maybe for you in this moment, you’ve ben living a double life, a “christian” when you are at church but don’t care about it all when you are away from this building.
You might be thinking, Ryley we are just in highschool, we can figure this out later”. I don;t think thats true, to me, your lives are incredibly valuable and I belive that you all have the oppunity ot make a difference in this crazy world that we live in. You have been given every tool in the kingodm of God to radiate hope, to emuate love. You can do this, but it first begins wiht his question...
How much is God worth to you?
Is He just worth the hour on Sunday morning and the hour and half on Friday night? Or He is he worth everything you havve. Is He worthy of your love and attention?
You were and are, worth it. So much so that He died for you. Took on the punsihment and totrture of death, so that you can live. Are you worth it? To God...wihout question. And he would do it again, if it meant he got you back.
We
We
As we enter into this New Year, my challenge for all of us is that we learn to love God wiht everything within us. Though eveyrthing we do we do it it becasue of ur love for God. That we would be people driven by love. In fact, Jesus sasys that others will know that we are followers of Jesus by the fact that we show His love to people.
As we learn to Love God with everything within us, our peresective changes, we see the world in a new light. We begin to see people as created being wiht infite value who so desperatly need to be loved. So can we learn to do this? Can we learn to love God with all of our heart, our soul, and our strenght?
Let’s pray.
(Dismiss to small group)