Loving God Exclusively

30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

This means we are to love Him with everything we have.

Today I want to look at the aspect Loving God Exclusively.

If we love him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength - There is no room for any other.

Matthew 6:24 KJV

24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

In Matthew 6 we see that four key ingredients to Loving God exclusively.

I. Loving God by Giving

(1-4)

what we give our money to shows what you love.

Let me say right off, I am not preaching this morning trying to get you to give.

Rather I want to focus on how you give.

the word Alms in the Bible means “to have mercy, pit, exhibited by giving charity.”

How you treat those around you who are struggling will show who you love.

We saw last week how that if you gave to the least of the brethren, you have given unto the Lord.

Proverbs 19:17 KJV

17 He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; And that which he hath given will he pay him again.

So, We can give, whether through your church, to a reputable charity or to an individual the Lord lays on your heat.

But the Bible gives us a few words of caution in this, Give...

A. Not for Recognition

(1-2)

If you give so that others can see you give, you have your reward!

You don’t need a press conference, or a special service where we walk up to the front to place our offering in the box.

We shouldn’t give so that others will glorify us.

May it not be said of us, as it was said of the chief rulers in Jesus day

John 12:43 KJV

43 For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.

Rather we should give and let God receive the glory.

Not only should we not give for recognition of others, but also giving...

B. Not in Pride

(3-4)

Now perhaps that is involved in the first part, but the emphasis here is our heart and thoughts.

He says don’t even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

I know that is literally impossible, but the point is to not dwell on it.

Do it, and let it go!

Why?

Because the more we think about it, the more we will become prideful.

And if we do, the Bible says that the Father will reward us openly.

How we give will show who or what we love!

Do we love the praise and thankfulness of men?

Do we love the swell of pride within ourselves when we give.

Do we love the Lord?

The Bible says we need to give to others.

In fact one of the commands in the Bible regarding stealing says.

Ephesians 4:28 KJV

28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

The purpose for work, according to this verse is that he would have to give to him that needs it.

So we Love God by giving.

Jesus Goes on in His sermon and shows us another way we can love the Lord...

II. Loving God by Praying

(5-8)

Prayer is communing with God.

We love to talk to those who we love.

God wants to hear from us!

But we need to be careful not to fall into a trap!

When we pray, pray...

A. Not As a Hypocrite

The Bible says that the hypocrite loves to pray where everyone can see him.

he is not loving talking to God, He is loving the praise, admiration and respect of man.

They that do this have their reward.

So don’t pray as the hypocrite...

B. But Pray in Private

The Bible says to enter into thy closet - literally a storage chamber, or storeroom, or inner chamber.

The point is somewhere private.

War Room

The whole point of prayer is not so that others around us can hear us,

Oh we can encourage and edify one another through our prayer, but if this is our focus we have missed a great opportunity.

He gives another warning here about vain repetitions.

It’s a caution about just repeating the same thing over and over, rather than speaking from our heart.

This is one reason why we don’t have a book of prayers.

There is nothing wrong with reading a prayer and praying it to God, but it tends to cause idle talking, rather than heart filled prayer.

So instead in verse 9 Jesus gave us...

C. The Model Prayer

(9-13)

Again, if we just take these words and rattle them off, we are doing exactly what he warned us not to do.

But instead he gave us a formula, if you will.

1. Recognition of Who we are praying to

2. Praise

3. Requests

4. Forgiveness

5. Guidance

6. Praise

So we ought to Love God by Giving

And we ought to love God by praying

Thirdly we should be...

III. Loving God by Forgiving

(14-15)

In His model prayer He showed us that we ought to ask forgiveness for our sins, and forgive those who sin against us.

No He gives us a warning..

If we don’t forgive men, God will not forgive us.

For the Christian, this means that we will never be right with God, until we are right with man!

Peter asked God How many times do we need to forgive our brother, Seven times?

Jesus said, no seventy times seven - He was giving him a number He knew to mean forever and always!

He reminded Peter of why by telling him a parable of a king who had one of his servants that owed him a debt, one that could never be paid back it was so large.

The man begged for mercy from the king, and the king forgave him the debt.

The man left immediately and found another man who owed him about a days wage.

He demanded to be paid, and when he couldn't pay him He threw Him in prison for the debt.

The king heard about this wicked man and condemned him to the tormentors, until he could pay all he owed him.

In other words he would be tormented until the day he died.

How too often we are offended and refuse to forgive, when our debt to the Lord is so much larger!

Be careful of bitterness and unforgiveness.

It is not worth it!

No love God by forgiving those who hurt us!

So we can Love God by giving

We can love God by praying

We can love God by forgiving

and lastly Jesus mentions a forth way we can love Him...

IV. Loving God through Sacrifice

In this next passage, Jesus mentions two ways that we can sacrifice for Him.

A. Sacrificing Food

(16-18)

The assumption here is that those he is speaking to will fast.

He says When ye fast...

fasting is taking an appointed time to not eat, and using the time we would normally eat and spending extra time in prayer.

It may be 24 hours

It may be a week

It may be 30 days

Usually dependent upon how seriously you need to hear from God.

But he gives a caution, don’t do it like the hypocrites.

Walking around looking miserable and hungry and making it obvious they are fasting.

They have their reward.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to go without food for no reason!

So He speaks of Sacrificing food, then he turns his attention to our treasure.

B. Sacrificing Treasure

(19-24)

We need to not be so focused on heaping up treasure here on earth

It is all corruptible, it can be stolen.

But our focus ought to be laying up treasure in heaven!

Why?

verse 21 - For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also!

IN verse 22-23 he gives the warning: what we focus on will either bring light or darkness into us.

Focus on Eternal - and our body will be full of light.

Focus on temporal - and our body will be full of darkness.

He brings it down to the bottom shelf where we can all reach it in verse 24

We cannot serve two masters.

We will either serve God - by loving him through our giving, through prayer, through forgiving, and through sacrifice

or we will serve mammon - Treasure - Earthly treasure - and we will give only to gain treasure, we will worship treasure, we will forgive only where it will benefit us, and sacrifice only to gain temporal things.

Conclusion

Jesus wraps up this section by reminding us that we need not focus on the things of this earth.

Our Father has it in His control!

25-33

Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength!

Give Him Your All!!

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