Back in 2012, we had a three part message series on the year's theme DRIVEN. I find that for us to be united as brethren here in our church, we need to use these same principles.Thus, we are going through these same three messages then one more message beyond that, and finally, Lord willing, back to our study in Revelation.
The great quest of life, the question that each person asks parents, spouses, friends and even pastors: Why am I here? My short answer has always been found in Ephesians 2:10: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Yet, there is more. If you look at today's key Scripture passage, you will see that loving God and loving others is the greatest commandment. We are created to love God, love others and to do good works.
Our key priority as brethren or kindred in Christ is to love God and to love others. Our theme from 2012 was this:
DRIVEN: God-Family-Church-Others.
Essentially, the theme of Love God, Love Others is the umbrella under which God-Family-Church -Others exists: loving God and loving others is infused within the four subcategories.
Sound confusing? I hope not. But over the next few weeks we will flesh out the details of each category. This week, we will review the concept of Loving God, and what that entails.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Mark 12:30-31, NKJV
God First, Everything Else Second: Love God, Love His Word
I have preached in 2011 about the paramount importance of the above scripture and it's parallel scriptures in the Gospels of both Matthew and Luke. In short, as the above title states, God first, everything else second.
I have found that we must remember that it is important to expand on what it means to love God; loving people is the secondary importance to loving God. Yet how many times do preachers "soften" their messages because they do not want to offend people? We that are called to teach and preach the Word of God have our first priority and responsibility to handle the Word of God with diligence, respect and honor. To make the Word of God understandable to men is applaudable; to make the Word of God acceptable to men is an abomination.
Our first priority in loving God is to love His Word. I love worshiping God in song and in prayer, but God's Word shows us that the Scriptures must be above all else:
I will praise You with my whole heart;
Before the gods I will sing praises to You.
I will worship toward Your holy temple,
And praise Your name
For Your lovingkindness and Your truth;
For You have magnified Your word above all Your name. Ps 138:1-2, NKJV
Now let's break down this passage part by part, but look at the last part of verse two first: For You have magnified Your word above all Your name. The English Standard Version translates this segment as for you have exalted above all things your name and your word, with "you have exalted your word above all your name" in the margin. In either case, God holds his Word either above or at least equal to His very name. Blasphemy, or the abuse of God's name, is addressed in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) third, right after the commands of "only one God" and the "no idol worship" commands. So then, the very first thing is that God's Word must be of utmost importance to the Christian and to the man who delivers messages for God, the pastor or preacher!
Now look at the passage keeping in mind that God's word is the reason for it all (the word for in the mentioned segment shows God's Word as such):
I praise you with my whole heart--with everything I am, because of God's Word. I will sing praises before other gods--which are false gods that do not exist--because God's Word tell me this is so. I will worship toward where your glory is-- Your holy temple (remember, this is Old Testament) because of what your Word tells me--of your lovingkindness and your unwavering truth. All of this is because God has magnified--made large--His Word above His very name!
God First, Everything Else Second: Love God, Love To Praise Him
Loving God means loving His Word. His Word is the revelation of Him; while God's Word does not reveal everything about God, it does reveal everything we need to know about God. And the more we get to know God, the more we love Him.
I often think that some people have the wrong attitude in studying the Bible, or for that fact, even preaching His Word. The Bible is not just "do's and don'ts" but it is history, poetry, biography and song. We can see the very heart of God within it.
There is an elementary principle set in how a person should pray that I find very useful, and I still use it each time I pray. It is the acronym ACTS, and each letter designates a certain part of prayer:
Adoration: We praise God for what He has done and whom He is.
Confession: We confess to God that we have sinned--He knows it, we know it, He is right, we are wrong and we ask for forgiveness.
Thanksgiving: We thank God for what He has done: He knows it, we know it, He is to be honored for doing it and thanked.
Supplication: We ask for the things we need from the God Who Provides (Yaweh Jireh, literally "Yahweh will see to it" (Gen 22:14).
Let's focus on the first part here: Adoration. When we write a letter to a loved one, we may well write "Dearest Kay" (that would be me of course). We show that person that we have an affection for them. If you read the Psalms, many are songs written in praise to God. I myself have often fallen into the trap of reading much Scripture that is doctrine related; what we believe is so very important, but God also loves when we praise Him. And we are spurred on to praise Him when we study His Word in Psalms, in Proverbs, passages like Mary's Magnificat in Luke 2, and other praise passages.
I have always been of the opinion that in the worship service that all songs need to be doctrine songs. By that I mean songs that are meaty when it comes to Bible teachings. I do still think that we need to have some of the old hymns of the faith in our Sunday song list,
Worship, like prayer, needs to start with praise and adoration to God with the focus being on God's Son, Jesus. While the lyrics are important, and should not be overly repetitive (7-11 songs, seven words chanted eleven times!), simple Bible concepts of praising God are great ways to draw close to God and prepare to worship Him, both in the church service and in personal worship!
God First, Everything Else Second: Are You REALLY Loving God?
To love God is not to "have good feelings about Him," for true love involves the will as well as the heart. Where there is love, there will be service and obedience. (Be Loyal-Matthew Commentary, Warren W. Wiersbe)
Over the years, I have asked people a single, tough question and always with their permission: "If you were to die today, and God were to ask you "Why should I let you into My Heaven", what would you tell Him?" I have, in turn, received many answers such as these:
I am a good person.
I give to those who are in need.
Well, I haven't murdered anyone and I am not a bad person!
God, you are the Judge and only You can judge me.
I want to get into Heaven! (Kay's aunt told me that...and got saved minutes later!)
I have done more good than bad in my life.
Yet one that has come up more in recent years is this statement "I love God!" Yet, when a person is pressed about what they mean or how they show this, they most often will have the "deer in the headlights look"! I think this is because they are counting on "good feelings", as Dr. Wiersbe noted above, to get them into Heaven. I am sorry if this offends you, but a relationship of loving God does not mean that life is all peaches and cream, all warm and fuzzies. That kind of thought gets blown away when we face the severe difficulties in life like death of a loved one, divorce, loss of a job, a severe disease like cancer or multiple sclerosis, or when a child goes astray.
As we have discussed before, the Koine Greek has four different words for love, two of which are predominant in the Greek New Testament: phileo and agapeo. Phileo is the word from which we get philharmonic (friendly harmonies) and Philadelphia (City of Brotherly Love). It means to love like a brother. However, the word used here is agapeo; it is a "God type love", a love of the will that is generated by God and expects nothing in return. Other types of love expect a return on the love shown, but agapeo love does not expect anything in return.
It is an important thing to remember that when we seek physical blessing by our works we are in error. God can and does bless us with physical blessing by providing us with what we need, not necessarily what we want. If you think hard about it, the word agapeo itself is a love that does not expect return. In fact, we should have a love for God that is based upon what God the Son, Jesus Christ, has done for us, not what He will do for us with the exception of what He is continuing to do in us and what He is preparing for us in Heaven.
God First, Everything Else Second: Love God With All You Are!
What, then, does it mean to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30)? It's important to look at the four words--heart, soul, mind, strength--from the original Greek.
Heart: "The seat and center of human life" (Zodiates); "To the ancient Hebrews, heart referred to the core of one's personal being." (John MacArthur). Albert Barnes commented "To love him with all the heart is to fix the affections supremely on him, more strongly than on anything else, and to be willing to give up all that we hold dear at his command." I would think that perhaps a good term would be devotion. Are you devoted to God? Is God really, truly the center of your life?
Soul: "The seat of the senses, desires, affections, appetites, passions." (Zodiates). The term soul is closest to what we would call emotion and is the word Jesus used when He cried out in the Garden of Gethsemane the night He was arrested: "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death" (Matt. 26:38). (MacArthur) Perhaps a better way to look at the term soul (psuche) is emotion. A true relationship with God through Jesus Christ is not a cold, dry, lifeless, emotionless relationship. This does not mean that we do not go through dry periods, or that Christians are always happy, however.
Mind: "Mind is used here in the sense of intellectual, willful vigor and determination, carrying both the meaning of mental endeavor and of strength." (MacArthur). Zodiates noted that the word for mind in Koine Greek is a combination of two words, one meaning "to agitate in mind" and the other "to think over"...also,"Understanding, intellect, intellectual faculty, thought, mind." In other words, we are to use our brains! We are not to just mindlessly buzz through life without purpose, but instead we are to think things through. We purpose in our minds, with our intellect, our love for God. The idea that Christians are mindless zombies is here proven to be false.
Strength:"Mental and moral power, meaning might, ability, facility" (Zodiates). While this term does indicate strength, it also means ability. In other words, love God with all of your ability to do so.
Now each one of these words are preceded by "all your". Not some, not most, but ALL. We are to love God as the center of who we are and the center of our life, with our emotion and passion, with our minds and thoughts and with all of our abilities. As mentioned earlier, we are God's workmanship--he gifts us with certain spiritual gifts--and we are not to keep them to ourselves; we are to use them in loving service to Him.
