Loving God Starts With Our Need Series

Loving God Starts with Our Need

Series: First Love: Forming Our Love for God

Brad Bailey – February 26, 2023

Intro

I want to invite us to open ourselves to this truth today:

We are never home… apart from the love of God.

The Scriptures testify of our being created to live in relationship to God and to His love.

We are not merely the sum total of our biological parts, we are in the words of Genesis "a living soul" (Gen.2:7).

We were endowed with that which unites us with God. We were created to exist in relationship to God’s love.

When we look at a human child…even more than their need for biological care… we see their need to be loved and to love. Because that is who we are. [1]

Jesus said the greatest of all we are called to is this…

“The most important one…is this… Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” - Mark 12:30

Such a call can seem at once obvious… but also one which is challenging.

Is God our first love?

Maybe we recall when our heart leapt before the love of God… and we sensed nothing mattered more….but perhaps like an earthly love… our hearts waned with familiarity… desire is replaced by duty… and other affections claimed more of our hearts.

And so we are setting apart this season to focus on our first love… our love for God. And we are doing so during the season that is known as Lent.

As Pope Francis described…

“Lent comes providentially to reawaken us, to shake us from our lethargy.” - Pope Francis

While Lent is often associated with the Catholic tradition, many Christians–including Protestant and Orthodox–observe it. It arose from the earliest of times…out of a recognition that we do well to set

apart a time to reflect… a time especially fitting in the final weeks before remembering the death and resurrection of Christ. [2]

Lent draws its inspiration from the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert. The Gospels tell us that after his baptism, Jesus fasted in the desert and then was tempted by the devil. He resisted these temptations and then went to Galilee to begin his public ministry. As he prepared for the sacrifice of his cross….so we fast and face our own temptations.

As such, the Lenten season often includes some form of fasting… which can sound extreme in our current culture….but is actually a very natural way to detach from something in order to more deeply attach to another. We might consider a particular meal or food… but God may show us other activities… particularly that we sense have gained a place in our lives… not healthy… or has too much control.

In the Catholic tradition… which is the most commonly followed… Lent began last Wednesday… Ash Wednesday… and includes 40 days until Good Friday… based on not including Sundays….several

of you joined in that start. We join the same 40 days…but we don’t exclude Sundays…and as such… we begin this tomorrow…. concluding on Good Friday.

So today is an invitation to join this season.

And we begin in the spirit of Ash Wednesday.

With the spirit of humility and hunger for God.

In the great Sermon on the Mount…Jesus began …

How blessed are those who know their need of God; the kingdom of Heaven is theirs. - Matthew 5:3 (NEB)

Our love for God begins with our need.

Such a need confronts our pride…and independence.

As C.S. Lewis describes…

“In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to

yourself. Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison - you do not know God at all.” ? C.S. Lewis

Lewis is speaking into something at the core of our nature. We have been trying to make something of ourselves… which in the end… leaves us lost.

We are not the subjects which can presume to make the source of life merely our object… and contain and control with our understanding. There is one immeasurably greater.

C.S. Lewis further notes…

“As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.” - C.S. Lewis

Similarly…we face one who is immeasurably superior to our goodness. And this perhaps is the deeper challenge. [3]

There is an exchange in the life of Jesus… that his disciples recorded… that invites us all into the reality of our need.

Luke 7:36-50

When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. 37 A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. 38 As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.