How To Love God With Your Soul - 1 John 2:15-17 Series

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Required Desire

Man-Centered?

It is fairly rare that Tracy will make a comment about my sermons, but last week when we were driving home from church she said, “Darrell – you seemed distracted by the people who walked out of the sanctuary last week during the sermon.” And I confessed to her that I was. The reason she noticed it as being an unusual thing is because people almost always walk out during my sermons. And I never think anything of it. It might be someone who is on call at work who got paged, or maybe they are sick, or they need to tend to something for whatever reason – I never make assumptions about why people are leaving. In fact most of the time I do not even notice when they leave. I have my notes all printed out, so usually when you see me up here stammering and stumbling over my words it means I am trying to decide whether or not to depart from my notes and give an explanation for something. And that is what happened last week. There were some people who got up and walked out right at the point in the sermon where I was saying something that, not long ago, I might have gotten up and walked out if I heard a preacher say that. I was distracted because I was trying to decide whether I should stop and give an explanation, because I could really sympathize with anyone who was uncomfortable at that point in the sermon. I decided not to because a proper explanation will take too long, so I held it for today.

And if you were not here last week – here is what I said: I was talking about the many times in Scripture God is described as being like food and drink. I asked you to think of what you would say if someone asked you what God is like, and then I went on to say that more often than not the psalmists would say, “He’s like a banquet, He’s like Country Buffet.” And the whole sermon was about how God satisfies the appetites of the soul. Not very many years ago, if I heard a preacher say that I may well have walked out, because one thing I have a very low tolerance for is man-centered preaching. Preachers want to relate to people so they end up preaching in a way that makes it sound like God exists to please us, and what matters most in the universe is our happiness. God does not exist to please us. We exist to please Him. He is important; we are not important. What happens to me has zero intrinsic significance. If I am happy or sad, filled or empty, healthy or sick, alive or dead does not matter the slightest bit – except inasmuch as it reflects on God. If my being happy honors Him in some way, then it is a great thing. If my being happy dishonors Him in some way, then It is a terrible evil. If my being alive shows something about God – that is great. If my dying a slow, painful death would do something to show His glory – then my prayer is, “Lord, let me die a slow, painful death.”

Only God matters. So one of the worst things a person could ever say about my preaching is that it is becoming man-centered rather than God-centered. Man-centered preaching is evil. And it is cruel. The kindest thing I can ever do is point you to God. The cruelest thing I can do is point you to yourself or to me or to anything other than God.

So I resist with all my might that kind of preaching that feeds the self-esteem, self-importance, self-absorbed attitude of our day. When people say, “Jesus died for me – therefore I am important” – wrong conclusion. It should be, “Jesus died for me – therefore what amazing love He has!”

So where does that leave us with last Sunday’s sermon? A whole sermon about our longings and desires and cravings being fulfilled by God. I can sympathize with anyone who might have thought that was man-centered. However, I do not take it back. In fact I believe it with all my heart. It is not man-centered, and this morning I would like to explain why.

Review

Now, for those of you who are new let me get you up to speed. We have been studying Jesus’ words in Mark 12:30 where He delivered what He described as the first and greatest commandment:

Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.