THE CORE VALUES OF JESUS
MARK 12:29-33
Sermon Objective: To help us evaluate our faith goals and needs for the New Year.
Supporting Scripture: Psalm 139; Romans 12:1-2; 13:9-10 9; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8-18
INTRO:
It’s the New Year. It is that time of year when we evaluate the past and seek to improve ourselves. There is something about the New Year that makes this so. There are certain things I, personally, have been giving serious consideration:
† My lack of exercise and weight gain is no longer acceptable. I began making plans right before Thanksgiving (no need to bother during the holidays) to make some changes at the first of the year.
† My discipline and practice time playing the guitar has sloughed off during hunting season. It will reconvene now.
† My reading regimen always suffers at this time of year – I have began cracking open the books again too.
I am sure that many of you have also been evaluating some lifestyle or behavioral concerns too.
In the midst of our evaluations and resolutions we would be not only remiss but completely off-course if we failed to look at our walk with the Living and Loving God. That is why, as I mentioned to you last summer, I think it is necessary to return to Jesus’ core values on occasion and look at things from His perspective.
29"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: ’Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’31The second is this: ’Love your neighbor as yourself. ’There is no commandment greater than these."
32"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
As I mentioned, there are resolutions/goals I am establishing for this year. These are not impulse goals but thought through and prayed through. There are others that I am making too. They are spawned from the Core Values of Jesus. No two commands in all of Scripture are as important as these two and they provide us with a God-given blueprint for spiritual development and service. When considering your spiritual health these verses are an ideal starting point.
I want to encourage you to look at this passage in regards to your spiritual growth today. I challenge you to ask yourself two questions:
1) How is the Holy Spirit leading me to love God more completely?
2) How is the Holy Spirit challenging me to love my neighbor?
LOVING GOD
As I have told you before – these commands give us a pattern for developing into mature, fruitful disciples of Jesus.
LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART: CONVERSION (the heart is turned to Him via a New Birth)
LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR SOUL: SANCTIFICATION (the will is surrendered to God and empowered for service and righteousness)
LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR MIND: TRANSFORMATION (We discipline ourselves to study the Word allowing God’s Spirit to renew our minds)
LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH: STEWARDSHIP (We understand that all we are and have REALY belong to God and our lifestyle becomes an act of worship and service to the King).
Romans 12:1-2 illustrates the process of loving God with all our being quite well. Paul says: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Can you discern spiritual growth within yourself by looking at these four markers? I am certain you can. They are Divine indicators that one is becoming a mature Christ-follower.
The New Year is a good time to review this because, for whatever reason, the human heart is … to use a phrase from a grand old hymn “Prone to wonder; prone to leave the one it loves.”
The Bible recognizes this and continually calls us to renewal. In the Revelation, our Lord says:
I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.
(Revelation 2;2-5a)
In this New Year, I am asking God to show me how to love Him more fully. I am laying everything on the table and saying “Here I am, Lord. Make me like your Son. I invite your Holy Spirit to take this year and sift me, search me, and change me.”
I am asking myself questions like:
† WHAT DOES THE WAY I SPEND MY TIME SAY ABOUT MY LOVE FOR JESUS? Is God pleased with the way I manage the time He has given me?
† WHAT DOES THE WAY I READ GOD’S WORD SAY ABOUT MY LOVE FOR HIM? Do I set aside regular times to listen to Him? “Am I a doer of the Word?”
† WHAT DOES THE WAY I USE MY MONEY REVEAL ABOUT MY PASSION? I am not asking myself to consider giving more … I am asking myself to consider giving (spending) different.
† WHAT DOES MY PRAYER LIFE REVEAL ABOUT MY INTIMACY WITH GOD?
LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOR
I used to think that you could not satisfy Core Value #2 (loving your neighbor) until Core Value #1 was satisfied; but I am changing my mind. Different people are more advanced in different regions of their growth and we (as a church) can learn and advance by watching others. I, for example, am woefully behind spiritually in knowing how to love my neighbor. I look to some of you (and the larger church) to discover what it means to love my neighbor in a practical and genuine way. I won’t embarrass him with details but Eric C. has been very instrumental in showing me a God-like disposition and manner of loving a one’s neighbor.
But I am learning that there is so much more to loving our neighbor than any of us have ever realized. Oh, sure, we all have glimpses of it but when the Church really discovers what it means to serve other people we might be surprised at how the Holy Spirit uses that to draw people to Jesus. It is in loving our neighbor more and more fully that loving God is realized and we can be called spiritually mature.
One Christian writer explains it quite honestly … brutally honest in fact.
"Our comical insistence that we are loving, despite our reputation, is a bit like a man insisting he’s a perfectly loving husband when his wife, kids, and all who know him insist he’s an unloving, self-righteous jerk. If he persists in his self-serving opinion of himself, insisting that his wife, kids and all who know him don’t understand what “true love” is, it simply confirms the perspective these others have of him. This, I submit, is precisely the position much of the evangelical church of America is in. Until the culture at large instinctively identifies us as loving, humble servants, and until the tax collectors and prostitutes of our day are beating down our doors to hang out with us as they did with Jesus, we have every reason to accept our culture’s judgment of us as correct. We are indeed more pharisaic than we are Christlike."
(Gregory Boyd, from "The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church")
In recent years God has began showing me how important loving my neighbor is. My relationship with God was far too vertical for far too long. My eyes have begun to be opened and I am beginning to see that Jesus loves people simply because they exist and not with some ulterior motive or as a project. I have begun to see that Jesus’ love was so evident that people did not wonder whether they were valued … they knew instinctively that this Man loved them … they could tell Jesus wanted to be with them, that Jesus wanted the best for them and that Jesus was willing to invest Himself to help them become whole.
Churches that discover this and let the Holy Spirit make it part of their DNA advance God’s Kingdom and honor God.
I am asking God, this year, to help me learn what it means to love my neighbor. I am not trying to fabricate a construct that looks like I love them – I am asking God to teach me to love them and I am looking for the opportunities God places in my path.
The writers of the New Testament got it. Listen to a few small portions:
† Romans 13:9-10 9 The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
† Galatians 5:14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
† James 2:8-18 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
12Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!
14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
WRAP-UP
As this New Year begins I am asking God to search me and show me how my life and lifestyle reflect love for Him and neighbor. I am asking God to make me into a more fruitful and mature Christ-follower.
If we are to become the person and people God designed us to be then neither loving God nor loving neighbor can be neglected.
As we enter our worship time, I trust you will remain open to the Holy spirit’s touch.
This sermon is provided by Dr. Kenneth Pell
Potsdam Church of the Nazarene
Potsdam, New York
www.potsdam-naz.org
Children’s Sermon
Play Dough
Proverbs 28:14
Hello everyone! It is wonderful to be worshipping with you today. Worshipping with other Christians is a great way for us to learn about God and become more like him.
That’s what we are looking at this morning in our worship service – how we can become more like Jesus. The Bible tells us that the key to becoming like Jesus is to have hearts that are like … like what I have in this container … Play Dough!
Have you ever played with play dough?
You can make all kinds of things with it can’t you?
What do you like to make with play dough?
Well, the Bible teaches us that if our hearts are soft towards God (that means we will listen to him and obey when God speaks to us) then God will make us more and more like Jesus! That means our actions and attitudes will begin to be like the actions and attitudes of Jesus.
Have you ever played with play dough and forgot to put it back in its container?
What happens to it?
That is correct – it gets hard and then you can’t make it into anything any more. The Bible says our hearts can get that way too. In Proverbs 28:14 it says, Blessed is the man who always fears the LORD, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.
Let’s tell God we want to have hearts that are soft so God can make us like Jesus.
This Children’s Sermon is provided by Dr. Kenneth Pell
Potsdam Church of the Nazarene
Potsdam, New York
www.potsdam-naz.org
