God’s Love
Mark 12:28-31
February 10, 2019
For the past few weeks we’ve been looking at some really tough passages which call us to put God first in our lives. We’ve seen Jesus tell people who wanted to follow Him, “to let the dead bury the dead” and “if you want to follow me, you can’t look back.”
We’ve seen Jesus say some pretty radical things, like last week . . . when He told us we must HATE our parents, spouse and kids, hate our brothers and sisters, and even hate life itself. If we couldn’t do that, then we couldn’t be His disciples.
That’s all pretty dramatic, pretty harsh, it’s in your face. Yet, we realize that Jesus’ point is that we must place Him first in our lives. We need to love Jesus more than we love anyone or anything else. If we love Jesus more, then we love everyone and everything better. Our love is then healthier, because it’s God’s love. God’s love is what drives us to become a better person.
It happens because we embrace God’s love. We allow God’s love to filter in us through our filters, the walls we build up. It happens because we’ve accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. We’ve said “Yes, Lord, I believe in you, forgive me of my sinfulness. Create in me a pure heart, a right heart, a spirit that longs to know you, a mind which grows in your wisdom and a body which is your temple!
I wonder about how well we understand, how well we believe, how well we allow it to fill us . . . . God loves us. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said –
11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! – Matthew 7:11
Isn’t that true about God? We are sinners, yet we love our kids, our grandkids, our nephews and nieces, and we would do anything to help them, yet, Jesus reminds us we’re evil, we’re sinners . . . BUT God who is perfect, will give us so much more.
I remember about 17 years ago. We were living in a small farm town in central Illinois. Debbie was at home with the boys and I would often walk the 3 blocks to church. I would often come home for lunch, and when I would walk into the house, I would have 2 boys come charging at me. They would grab my legs and I would pick them up and play with them. Eventually Debbie had to kick me out of the house to get back to work.
My point is that the boys had this deep amazing love for me. Not that they no longer do. Now, it’s hey dude, what’s in the wallet? Granted, I’m glad they don’t jump on me, but that love they showed way back then. It was amazing! It was just a simple kids love for a parent.
And isn’t that how we should feel about God? Shouldn’t we want to greet God everyday and jump into His arms, hold onto His legs, laugh and be silly in His presence? Shouldn’t that be the love we have for God?
We’re supposed to have a love relationship with God. But it seems like we have spiritual amnesia. No matter how much we learn about Jesus, or learn about God’s creation, no matter how we see the galaxies through the Hubble telescope, or see another sunset, or look at a newborn child, or whatever it is that draws us to God’s glory . . . we still seem to forget, don’t we?
We seem to move about our day without giving God another thought. We wake up and we’re off to the races. It seems that it’s so much harder than it should be to love the God of the universe. The great Creator. The One who created me, who created a purpose in me, who gave me life, who died for me. The One who adopted me into His family. It should be simple.
But then again, I think about how I love Debbie. I know there are those days where I fall short. I don’t do as I should. I get a little more hyped up about a comment than I should. I get to see her physical presence all the time, but it seems like I take her for granted. I know she’s there. I expect her to be there. Yet, my love is imperfect, and it would seem it shouldn’t be.
Yet, it’s the same with God. Do we sometimes just forget to love God? How often have we been distracted, that we kind of forget about Him. We go to pray and the phone rings and we forget to pray. We think about reading the Bible, but something happens and we don’t read.
Jesus was having a conversation and this Jewish guy asked Jesus —
28 “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.” – Mark 12:28-31
In Judaism verse 29 is called The Shema. The word shema in Hebrews means TO HEAR. It’s the first word of what Jesus said, in verse 29, and it’s the holiest of prayers for the Jews.
But Jesus follows that up by telling us we are to Love the Lord our God with ALL of our heart, ALL of our soul, ALL of our mind and with ALL of our strength. This is a huge theological construct! First, we proclaim that there is only ONE God. That’s so important today, as it was back then. There was and remains all kinds of competition for our attention, lots of false gods for us to worship.
But we must make the proclamation that there’s only one God, and that God is our Lord. Then we must show our love for Him. And we do that by giving God ALL of ourselves. The 4 aspects of our nature must be filled with love for Him.
We are to love God with ALL of our heart our soul, our mind and with our body.
We do this because we recognize God is holy. It means God has been set apart, He is distinct from us. Because of that we can never fully fathom God’s nature. We use imperfect words to describe a perfectly perfect God.
God is not only described as holy, but we see in Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8, God is described as “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY.” To the Jews, saying something 3 times like this demonstrated perfection. So, to call God holy like this means He is perfectly set apart - - - with nothing and no one who can be compared to Him.
We also come to realize that God is eternal. We all have a start and finish date. But God does not. God always has been and always will be. We try to determine when God existed or how things came into existence, but again, there is so much over our heads, that we cannot explain God away.
If we could fully quantify and explain God away, that would not be a very big God. It’s kind of like we’re a 2 liter bottle of pop and God is the size of all the oceans put together, and we try to describe God as a 3 liter bottle of pop. That’s crazy. We can’t explain God away, and strangely enough, that’s part of the beauty, majesty and power of God.
God is also all knowing. He is omniscient. It’s kind of intimidating to think that God knows all that is going on. He knows what’s going on behind closed doors and when the door is opened. We can fool one another about who we are, but we can never fool and hide from God.
God knows our thoughts before we think them. He knows what we’re going to say and do before we do them. He knows what we’re about because He created us. Hebrews 4:13 tells us –
13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.
Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. – Hebrews 4:13
Understand this, and I really think it’s kind of cool, yet scary. God chooses to know us intimately. He knows the hairs on our head. He knows what we’re going to eat for lunch. He knows who’s going to the Valentine’s Banquet tonight. He knows who’s going to call in sick tomorrow. God knows it! There’s no fooling God. He is all knowing, besides holy and eternal.
But add to that the fact that God is all powerful. He’s omnipotent. God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Paul tells us - -
16 For by Him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. – Colossians 1:16
That’s so true. All things, including you and I were created by Him. We should stop and give God praise and glory for His creation. David reminds us in Psalm 139, we are fearfully and wonderfully created in our mother’s womb. God knit us together. Before time began, God already had a plan for our lives. That’s so amazing. Yet, we live as if God was created for us. God is supposed to be our magic genie. He’s supposed to bless us and care for us.
But we question God all of the time, don’t we? And I don’t believe this is necessarily wrong. I believe God wants us to talk to Him, even question Him, so ultimately there are no barriers between God and us.
Remember, God knows our heart. He knows our spirit and our questions, so ask. Talk to Him, draw nearer and closer to God, and experience Him drawing closer to you as well.
God is fair and just. He will not condemn the innocent. He will not get fooled by the wicked. God is the only perfect One and He demands for us to grow in godliness. God sets the standards, yet, as high as His standards are . . . He saw we could not meet perfection and sent His Son because of no other reason then His love for us.
God loves us, so He sent Jesus into this world so that we could find salvation. We could be saved from our sinfulness and find hope, healing, restoration. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done. God loves us. He sent His Son for you. You may beat yourself up over what you’ve done, you may not forgive yourself, but if you’ve sincerely, from the heart, asked God to forgive you, then you don’t need to ask Him again and again. He’s already forgiven you. He’s released you, you’re free.
That’s what the righteous judge has done for you. He has not condemned you, He has freed you from guilt and sin. He tells you, as he told the woman, “Go and sin no more!”
Hold onto the words of John 3:16-18 –
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son,
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
18 Whoever believes in Him is not condemned . . . – John 3:16-18
Those are so amazing words . . . whoever believes in Him is not condemned. He didn’t send Jesus into the world to condemn, but He sent His Son, to show you what amazing perfect, powerful, righteous, holy, merciful, grace-filled, strong love is like.
That’s what we find in Jesus.
I want to end this morning with a couple of final thoughts . . .
Firstly, this week, I want you to simply take time to consider God’s hugeness!
Think about, pray about, talk about, meditate about God’s hugeness.
Then consider the fact that He loves even you.
Consider He sent Jesus for you.
Consider He died for you.
Consider it! Celebrate it!
When you think about God this week . . . when you’re about to pray or read scripture . . . or do whatever you do to draw near to God . . . start out by thanking God for blessing you. Just simply give thanks. . . no strings attached, just give thanks.
Then come back and let’s talk more about God’s love next week. This is leading us to somewhere special. So, hang with me and celebrate God.
I want to close with a story which goes back to what we spoke about last week, about placing Jesus first. I read this story on Wednesday - - -
It was about a female basketball player who is considered one of the best women ever to play in the WNBA. Her name is Maya Moore. Her accomplishments include this - 4 time college first team all American, 2 time national champion, 2 time college player of the year. In the WNBA she has won 4 championships, was rookie of the year, has been a MVP and Finals MVP once and has won 2 Olympic gold medals. You could say Maya Moore is rather accomplished.
Well, this past Tuesday, she announced she will not be playing in the WNBA this season, instead focusing on her family and "some ministry dreams that have been stirring in my heart for many years."
She said, "There are different ways to measure success. The success that I've been a part of in basketball truly blows my mind every time I think about it. But the main way I measure success in life is something I don't often get to emphasize explicitly through pro ball.
"I measure success by asking, 'Am I living out my purpose?' I learned a long time ago that my purpose is to know Jesus and to make Him known."
Isn’t that amazing? She’s leaving professional basketball to concentrate on fulfilling her purpose of making Jesus known.
Her coach said this - - "As she recently shared, Maya has expressed a need to shift her attention more fully to family and ministry dreams in a way that she has been unable to as a professional basketball player."
Maya has taken the extra step . . . she is willing to make Jesus first. She’s experienced His love and power, and now she wants to share that with the world outside of basketball. That’s a powerful statement about who Jesus is.
