1/11/09 All of Him…All of Me…
Mark 12:28
And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?
Mark 12:29
And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
Mark 12:30
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
Mark 12:31
And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
(prayer)
We are going to have a theme this year at our church, it goes along with these verses which will also be our theme.
“All of Him…all of me”
You are going to be hearing this a lot, because we are going to be talking about it a lot. We are going to spend the next few weeks, as the Lord leads…discovering the truth and application of these verses.
I don’t know how 2008 was for you…economically…I’ve got a pretty good idea…we all want to forget that aspect of it don’t we…but, let me ask you how was 2008 spiritually?
How was your relationship with the Lord in 2008?
I want you today, and throughout the next few weeks to make an honest assessment of your spiritual life?
Some questions you need to ask yourself…
Did I grow?
Did I draw closer to the Lord?
Did I grow spiritually stronger in His Word?
Did I see God at work in my life?
Did God use me in any way to impact the life of someone else which either brought them to the Lord, or brought them closer to Him?
If you can truly answer, “yes” to any of these questions… then I know you got a taste of something that you want more of!
You can’t have God work in your life and not want more of it!
You can’t grow in the Lord, and not want to grow even more!
Ps 34:8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.
“…taste and see…” Try the Lord out! (We’ve got that on our sign out front right now…Try the Lord this year!)
If you can’t answer, “yes” to these questions…if your walk with the Lord struggled…
Then let’s do something different this year…
There’s a saying, “You can’t do the same thing, and expect different results."
If you feel you grew further from the Lord than closer to Him…
If you will honestly admit that your spiritual, everyday, walk with the Lord wasn’t/isn’t what it should be and you want that to change…
…then I want you to hang on…I want you to get ready for a different 2009!
There are two words that I want us to focus on in one of our verses this morning…
The first word is… “love”.
Mark 12:30
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
What are we supposed to do? (Love)
To Whom are we supposed to direct our love? (God)
When you love a spouse or a child/grandchild…you will do anything for them.
You will do anything to bring a smile to their face.
Why do you do those things…because you love them.
This is one of the ways that we express our love to one another…by our actions.
It is the same with our love toward God.
We express our love toward Him by our actions!
(How we live. How we act. How we trust Him. How we serve Him.)
1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous.
When we truly love the Lord it is not a hardship…it may take work…but, it’s not a hardship…it is not grievous…it’s awesome!
It’s not grievous for me to love my wife…it may take work at times.
(I’m easy to love. If only that were true.)
We are commanded to love the Lord…in fact scripture says…
1 Corinthians 16:22 If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.
"Let him be accursed; our Lord cometh." -ACC
We do not want to love Him by command only...
What person wants to love, or be loved only because they are told that they have too…
1 John 4:19 We love Him, because He first loved us.
God loved us…He created us…He sent His Son to die for us…to redeem us…can’t we…shouldn’t we love Him back?!
We show Him love by how we live for Him.
Listen, if some of you love your spouse the way you love the Lord…some of you might not be married anymore.
If your spouse won’t put up with the way you act at times…how do you think the Lord feels?
It’s not only in actions that we express our love…
We also, express love with our words.
I grew up in a family with great parents…yet, they were not much for PDA (that’s teen talk for Public Display of Affection) between one another.
They loved each other…we knew that. Dad gave mom a kiss on the cheek before he left for work…and, when he got home. I don’t recall Dad ever telling my mom that he loved her…in front of us, kids.
I know he did.
We all like to hear, “I love you” from people we love.
When is the last time you told the Lord, “I love you.”?!
You need to tell the Lord everyday you love Him…just as you do your spouse or child.
The Lord knows your heart…He knows whether you love Him or not.
Then why do you need to tell Him?
For one, it will be a reminder for you…but, more important…
When you say the words, “I love You, Lord”…while God already knows your heart…it’s going to cause you to think on whether you truly do or not.
If you are not in the habit of telling the Lord you love Him…you need to be.
Does God need your love? …no!
Does He want your love? …of course!
Does the lack of your expressing love toward God, change God in anyway? …no!
Ah, but, does it change you?! You better believe it!
When you do not love God…when you do not express love toward Him…in how you live, and in your words to Him…
You will miss the entire purpose of what God created you for, and the plans He has for you!
Do you really want to miss why He made you?!
So I express my love to God by my actions…how I live for Him…and by the words I say to Him.
The second word I want us to focus on in vs. 30 is…the word, “all”…
Mark 12:30
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
I’m not only to love God with my actions and my words, but to love Him with my all!
God doesn’t want some of me…He doesn’t want what I think I can afford to give of myself…He wants it all!
I don’t know about you, but when I want something…I want all of it.
I don’t want a bite of apple pie…I want the whole slice.
I don’t want a bite of a chocolate chip cookie…I want the whole cookie.
(My problem is usually I want the whole pie, and the whole batch of cookies. That can’t be good for me…but, thank goodness all of God is good for me…all of God is the best for us, it’s what He wants for us!)
All of Him!
God wants “all” of us…
If you’ve ever wondered…
What keeps me from experiencing all of God in my life?
What keeps me from experiencing or knowing His will?
You need to ask yourself, Do I have all of God?
More important, does God have all of me?
You see, there’s the catch…
“All of Him”…is going to take “all of me!”
How does God get all of me…how does God get all of you…it’s going to take surrender.
Mark 12:30
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
Jesus didn’t leave anything out when He chose these words!
Your heart is your focus and motivation.
Your soul is your spirit.
Your mind is your thought and your will.
Your strength is your physical action, all that you do.
Some of you may be thinking that’s asking too much!
You may be wondering, I don’t know if I can love like that, or love that much!
He did for you!
Jeremiah 31:3 “…Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love:…”
Conclusion:
object lesson:(I have a makeshift surrender flag.)
(I guess most surrender flags are makeshift…no one really plans in advance to surrender.)
The origin of the white surrender flag is unknown, although it dates back all the way to the Roman empire.
It’s known and recognized all around the world…it’s use is even listed and instructed in the Geneva Conventions. -www.wikipedia.org
Some of you need to wave the white flag of surrender and quit fighting against God…you need to surrender to His will for your life!
You need to surrender to love Him…maybe like you have never loved Him before.
In marriage, neither the ceremony nor the certificate creates love for one another…commitment, and surrender to one another does.
Salvation alone, doesn’t create love for God either.
You can be saved and not love God the way you should.
You can be saved…yet, not be surrendered.
And, if you are not saved…then you haven’t even begun to love Him. You can’t say you love Him, Whom you are still rejecting to receive.
Hymn "I Surrender All" by Judson Van DeVenter, 1896. Music: Winfield Weeden, 1896.
All to Jesus I surrender
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
All to Jesus I surrender,
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken,
Take me Jesus, take me now.
I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
Those lyrics were written in 1896. They were written by a man 112 years ago that was at a crossroad in his life…he was trying to decide whether to pursue the things of this world…or pursue what God was calling him to do.
He surrendered to God. Do you surrender today?!
I was reading about the white surrender flag…and often in war time, the flag was used to make the other think they were surrendering…at the last second it was pulled away…what seemed to be a surrender was just a ruse, a bluff.
We can’t fool God!
Sometimes, we can fool ourselves. We seem to make a commitment here, a surrender…but, something happens between here and those two doors in the back.
Oh, we can make a thousand promises to ourselves inside these doors…but, how quickly those promises, those empty commitments begin to fade once we leave those doors.
What’s going to make this time different?
If you will love the Lord this year…if you will surrender to Him…the Bible says…
1 Corinthians 2:9 “…Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”
Today, if the Holy Spirit is prompting, prodding, tugging at your heart…surrender!
Tell God…Lord, I want all of You! You can have all of Me!
