Two Steps to a Successful Christian Life
Mark 12:28-34
Living a successful Christian life isn't complicated. I am not saying that it is easy but it doesn't have to be convoluted with a long list of do's and don'ts. In ancient Israel, the Pharisees had taken the Old Testament law and codified the law into 613 regulations made up of 248 positive commandments and 365 prohibitions on how they were to live, which they imposed on their followers. There are numerous books that you can read which tell you how to live the Christian life, many providing helpful suggestions and guidelines. But living a life that pleases God does not have to be complex. Christ simplified or summarized what it takes into two steps which if we follow will lead us to living a successful Christian life.
I. Love God
A. Mark 12:28-30 "Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?” Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 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."
B. Shema - Hear and Obey! Loving the Supreme Lord, the one true God, Creator of the universe, creator of you is not optional! It is the primary duty of every Christian and is foundational to a victorious living.
C. But what does it mean to love God?
D. “Love” as seen in this command in Greek is the verb agapao. Agape is a love of intelligence and purpose, of sacrifice and hard decisions. In contrast to Phileo, an emotional, sentimental, affectionate love, agape is a “willful love, a determined love that generously chooses for the interests of another.”
E. In her blog Inspiration for Intentional Christian Parenting, Natasha Crain wrote, "To 'agapao' something has nothing to do with warm fuzzies, or even intense feelings. It’s about what you’re committed to. It’s about what comes first in your life. It’s about a choice. This isn’t splitting literary hairs. It makes a monumental difference in how we understand our calling to love God. The Bible makes it explicitly clear that we can agapao things other than God and that in doing so we are working against His desires for us. - Natasha Crain
F. To Agapao is clearly a choice:
1. John 3:19: “…the light has come into the world, and men loved (agapao) darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
2. John 12:43: “they loved (agapao) the praise of men more than the praise of God.
3. Luke 11:43: “Woe to you, Pharisees, because you love (agapao) the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.”
4. Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love (agapao) the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."
5. 1 John 2:15: “Do not love (agapao) the world or he things in the world.”
G. Our love for God must be an across-the-board commitment to put God and His will above all. There must be absolutely no holding back or incompleteness in our devotion and commitment to God.
H. Verse 30 - "...love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength."
I. We are to love (agapao) and obey God with "everything we've got".
J. Anything but a love for God that encompasses all of one’s being and every area of one’s life falls short of God’s will and our need if we are to be all that we were designed to be.
K. The goal of agapao love is that through a full commitment to know, honor, respect and willfully follow Christ in everything we will be led to a phileo love or an intimate and personal love for God and for the Lord Jesus Christ that will be manifest in transformed lives that radiate the joy of Christ.
L. Loving God with the strength of the mind, the strength of the emotion, and the strength of the will makes a truly Christian, a truly balanced, and a the truly strong character. - Adapted, Stanley Jones
II. Love Others
A. Mark 12:31 " And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
B. Loving others is not optional for the child of God - It is a command.
C. Absolute obedience to this second great commandment is impossible without fully obeying the first.
D. If our love for and walk with God is real, it will overflow into a love for others.
E. Loving others means loving every believer - not just those with whom we have an affinity or common interests.
1. 1 John 3:14 "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death."
2. 1 John 4:1-7, 20 " Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another... (v. 20) If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?"
F. Loving others is a willful and purposeful choice and commitment which does not seek its own interests but always unselfishly seeks the best interests of the other person. Love for others is not to be based on how they treat or act toward you.
G. Matthew 5:43-44"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you."
H. In order to love others you must see the value of others.
I. "Our ability to love people depends on recognizing how God values them. For instance, if someone hurts us or we angry and filled with resentment, does this cause us to devalue them so that we want to get even or do we pull away out of fear of getting hurt? If so, we have devalued them based on their treatment of us because we value ourselves more. Christ died for them and their sin just as much as He died for us and our sin." - The Paramount Issue, Bible.org
J. Loving others is ever forgiving and ever seeking out for reconciliation
1. 1 Corinthians 13:5b love " does not keep a record of wrongs."
2. Matthew 5:23-24 " Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift."
3. Matthew 18:15 " “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother."
K. Loving others is caring for the needs and burdens of others.
1. 1 John 3:17 " if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?"
2. Galatians 6:2 "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
L. Loving others is also seeing the value of a soul and caring enough to share Christ with those who do not know Christ and have not received His grace.
M. Paul in Romans 9 talks about the "great heaviness and continual sorrow" in his heart as he carried a burden for the lost of Israel.
N. If you love the Lord and if you love others, you will love the lost.
O. Fanny Crosby, that great blind songwriter, who is known as “the queen of gospel music.” More than her music, Fanny had another noble quality about her which was appealing, and that was her burden for souls. One night, in the summer of 1869, she was speaking to a large audience in the New York Bowery Mission. While she was speaking to them she was impressed, over and over again, that some mother’s boy must be rescued that night, or he might be eternally lost. Therefore, she made a pressing plea that if there was a boy present who had wandered from his mother’s home he must come to her at the end of the service. The service ended, and a young 18 year old man came forward, and asked, “Were you talking to me, Miss Crosby? I promised my mother that I would meet her in heaven, but as I am now living, that will be impossible.” She knelt down, spoke and prayed with the boy, and in a few minutes he stood up with a gleam in his eye, saying, “Now I am ready to meet my mother in heaven, for I have found God!” Several months later, Miss Crosby remembering the events of that hot summer night, and the boy’s conversion from a life of hopelessness, wrote the immortal words:
“Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave
Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save." - copied
P. Psalm 126:5-6 (NKJV) "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing (precious seed) seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."
Q. Charles Peace was a notorious career criminal in England in the 1800s. He committed numerous burglaries and was ultimately convicted and sentenced to hang for murdering a man. On the morning of his execution a clergyman led him out of the cell and began reading the Scriptures to him. He tapped the clergyman on the shoulder and asked him: 'Do you believe what you're reading?, and he said 'Oh, yes, yes, I believe it'. He said: “Sir, I do not share your faith. But if I did – if I believed what you say you believed – then although England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would crawl the length and breadth of it on hand and knee and think the pain worthwhile, just to save a single soul from this eternal hell of which you speak." - Copied
R. “Without concern we're not Christ-like. Now your greatest need as a Christian, and of every Christian, is a concern for lost and dying people. You have no claim to Christ-likeness unless you're concerned about others. Without concern we're not obeying the Scriptures.” —Pastor Lee Roberson (1909-2007), from the needful sermon, The Revival America Needs
