I’m Living On Purpose 7-15-07 Series: The New Me Pt.2 Mark 12:28-34
Intro. Hold up steering wheel, hammer and golf club – what do these things have in common? They’re all used to drive something. The wheel drives a car, the hammer drives a nail and the golf club drives a ball. The dictionary defines the word drive like this, “to carry through, to push forward, to guide, control and direct.” When you stop and think about it, that definition is exactly what purpose ought to do in our lives. Purpose should drive us towards a desired destination and ultimately carry us through to the end of our journey. Imagine how exciting it would be if you could know w/o a shadow of doubt what your life’s purpose really was? Do you think knowing that purpose would make a difference in the way you lived your life? Of course it would! Now before we can understand what our purpose is, we’ve got make sure we know what our life’s purpose is not. You were not put on earth for the sole purpose of making money, having a career, raising a family, being important, enjoying fame or even becoming powerful. There’s nothing wrong with these things…they’re simply not important enough to drive your life. So what should drive the life of a believer? Jesus tells us that our purpose for living can be summarized by these 2 simple statements – we are supposed to love God and love others. I know that sounds so basic and fundamental that most of us probably would say, “Hey I already know how to do those things.” But the truth is…we don’t really know how to love God and love others the way Jesus wants us to. That’s why I want us to look at Mark’s gospel and listen to the verbal exchange that occurred between a certain religious leader; a teacher of the law and Jesus Christ.
Let me set the stage for you. The religious establishment had already made up their mind about Jesus – he had to go. So they were constantly trying to trap into saying something that would end his ministry. The way they did that was by asking him certain questions that had been debated for years by well respected Rabbi’s and yet nobody seemed to have an adequate answer. Read Mark 12:28-34.
When this man asked Jesus, “Which was the greatest or most important commandment” he wasn’t asking Jesus to choose one out of the 10 commandments. NO! By the time Jesus arrived on the scene the Jewish religious system had taken the 10 commandments and expanded them to a whopping list of more than 600 rules, regulations and laws. It was out of this mammoth list that the leaders wanted Jesus to make a singular choice. Most of them probably thought, “we’ve got him now. There’s no way he can pick one commandment, say that’s the most important one and still please everyone.” As usual Jesus blew them away with his wisdom and spiritual insight. Jesus says if you take everything from the bible and boil it down you’ll find God’s purpose for your life wrapped up in these 2 things – love God and love others. He could have stopped right there, but that wouldn’t have done us much good. So he goes on to explain what that kind of love looks like in everyday life.
1. We must love God PASSIONATELY.
Did you know that the kind of love that ought to drive our lives is neither emotional nor sentimental? The love Jesus speaks about in v.30 is an act of your will, a determined choice to care about and be concerned with the welfare of someone other than yourself. It is the same kind of love that the NT speaks about God having for you and me. We call it agape love – that means it’s an intelligent, purposeful, self-sacrificing, active kind of commitment. So if you want to fulfill your life’s purpose then you’ve got to make a conscious, willful decision to love God.
Notice that Jesus says we’re to love God will all our heart, all our soul, all of our mind and with all our strength. Now we need to be careful that we don’t see these 4 phrases as if there were separate categories of our love for God. Jesus is not saying that you can love God with all your heart, but then you choose not to love him with your mind. NO. Rather than seeing these phrases as separate elements we need to view them as an expression of the totality and the comprehensiveness of our love for God.
Loving God with all you heart and soul speaks of a passionate kind of love. It’s a love where there is a sense of abandonment, where everything else seems to take a back seat. I remember when I first fell in love with Nancy. We were in 10th grade and yet nothing mattered more to me that to be with her as often and as long as I could. She was my passion and priority back then. But guess what? Today that passion and priority hasn’t waned, but rather it’s grown more intense through the years. That’s what should happen when you love God with all your heart and soul. God should be more of a passionate priority this year than he was last year. Here’s the million-dollar question – “Is He? Is God really your passionate priority?” Does your love for God DRIVE your life or is it just something you do on Sunday’s?
I told you earlier that this kind of love isn’t necessarily emotional or sentimental. Now that doesn’t mean emotions are never part of our love for God. On the contrary, when Jesus describes this driving love for God he says it encompasses our heart and soul. Those 2 words joined together basically describe our emotional core. From our inner most being we must choose to love God with a passion that drives us, with a hunger than controls us and with a purpose that leads us towards our ultimate destiny.
Loving God passionately isn’t the only thing that has to happen if we’re serious about fulfilling our life’s purpose. According to Jesus, there’s something else we have to do. I’ve asked George Marshall if he would explain what that is.
2. We must love God INTELLECTUALLY.
George’s final statement: Loving God with our whole mind means being deliberate – intentional about who we are becoming. God called us to be disciples and to make disciples. Our minds are going to have to be engaged.
3. We must love God PRACTICALLY.
Jesus says our love for God must include that which makes us uniquely us - our passions, as well as our minds and intellects. But real love never stops there. That’s why Jesus included this final phrase – we’re to love God with all our strength. If you’re not careful love can become so mundane and mushy that it no longer means anything. Nancy loves it when I tell her I love her, but guess what? That’s not enough; I’ve also got to show her I love her. There’s got to be some practical expression of my love…or that love really doesn’t mean much.
We show our love for God practically is through the commitments we make to Him. 2 Chron.16:9 says, “The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” What kind of commitments should we make to show our love for God? There are 5 basic commitments every person needs to make. 1). Give your life to Jesus Christ – that is to let Him be the Lord, master or ruler over the decisions of your life. A couple of weeks ago at the lake we had 3 guys step out into the waters of baptism. On that day they identified with Christ and through their actions they told God, “I Love You”. 2). Join a local church. Get connected to His body. 3). Choose to grow spiritually – to grow in your faith and become more and more like Jesus. 4). Commit yourself to using your talents and gifts in ministry. That means you won’t just sit in the church you’ve joined but you’ll actually get involved and help that church grow. 5). Make the decision to share your faith. Now those 5 commitments have the potential to change your life and the life of this entire church. Which one of those commitments do you need to re-up? Why don’t you do it right now? Go ahead and tell God I’ve fallen short in this area, but I’m making a fresh commitment right now.
There’s one final way we can show the practical side of our love for God. It shouldn’t come as any shock because it’s the same way we show how much we love each other. We show God that we love when we begin giving to him. Now the peculiar thing about giving to God is that you can never out-give God. Oh you may be able to get one up on a friend or your spouse, but you can’t do that with God. Let me show you what I mean. The bible says our giving is regulated by the law of the harvest. In other words, when you sow a seed you don’t get a seed in return, you expect to get a whole crop. 2 Cor. 9 tells us that if you plant generously you will receive a generous crop. Then it goes on to say, “God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.” (2Cor. 9:8) It’s amazing that God says when you show me the practical side of your love and begin giving to me, then I’m going to give back to you and I’ll bless you more than you could ever imagine.
Now if you’ve been in church more than a few times then you’d probably agree that Loving God is a pretty important thing to do. But look at v.31 and notice what else Jesus says – loving others is equally important. There’s no coincidence that our new vision statement encompasses both of these commandments. Love God and love others…and we love others by connecting with them and ultimately serving them. That brings us to our final point.
4. We must love others as ourselves.
I like what Warren Wiersbe says about love. “We are to love not by rules but by relationships.” In other words, we display our real love for God not by going to church or singing praise songs or even preaching sermons, but by loving those whom he has created and surrounded us with. So a very large part of your life’s purpose is to build and maintain relationships with the people that surround your life. Remember what I said about the word love in v.30? Jesus applies the same word to our relationships with others. We are to make a conscious, willful decision to care about and be concerned with the needs of other people.
I want you to notice 2 things about this part of our life purpose. First – we got to figure out the “who” when it comes to love. Who does Jesus say we supposed to love? Our neighbor. Hummmm – that seems rather ambiguous, doesn’t it? In Luke’s gospel we’re told that when this religious leader heard this statement he asked Jesus, “and who is my neighbor”? Do you remember what Jesus said? He told the story of the Good Samaritan. And the crux of that story is the fact that your neighbor is everyone you come into contact – regardless of race, color or creed. God says your purpose in this life is to love that person regardless of whether he’s your cranky neighbor, your stinky boss, your cantankerous mother-in-law or the stranger on your doorstep. That’s the who.
Now what about the how? How do we love these people? Jesus says we love them like we love ourselves. There’s a lot of ways to describe self-love, but let me just mention 2 of them. We’re called to love others intuitively – that is it ought to come naturally. When you’re hungry you feed yourself, when you’re thirsty you get a drink, when your cold you cover up and when you’re hot you find some shade. Just telling others how much you love them doesn’t do any good…you’ve got to show it. That leads to the second word I want you to remember. We’ve got to love others sacrificially. Think about it – when it comes to your own body you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make sure it’s cared for and satisfied. Jesus says…that’s the kind of love I want you to have for the world that surrounds you.
I want you to stop and think for a moment. If we were a church filled with people DRIVEN by this purpose to love God and love others, what would happen to our community? Let me give you the answer in simple form – LIVES WOULD BE CHANGED! Your life and their life!
What’s your purpose in life? What do you live for? And better yet, what are you willing to die for?
