The Primary Call to Love God

Welcome

Welcome

Sabbatical

Pentecost!

50 weeks after Passover

giving of law

harvest of barley, sowing of wheat

Coming of the Holy Spirit

changed history

Let’s pray his for his presence

Pray

Zephaniah 3:17 ESV

17 The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Matthew 3:17 ESV

17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Isaiah 62:5 ESV

5 For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

Acts 1:8 ESV

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

2 Corinthians 5:14–17 ESV

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Intro

What is most important to God?

We often are asking what do I want?

But the real question is what does HE want?

We are a part of HIS STORY.

It’s not about what we want but what he wants

What is most important to God’s heart?

How will he evaluate our lives?

Ephesians 2:8–10 (ESV)

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Someone asked Jesus this questions

Text: Matt 22:34-40.

Context:

Days before his crucifixion

Last public address

Religious Leaders are trying to trap him:

Pay taxes to Ceaser (Matt 22:15-22)

Give to God what is God’s...

About resurrection

You don’t know the power of God or the Scriptures

What is the Greatest commandment?

The ESV Study Bible Chapter 22

The rabbis engaged in an ongoing debate to determine which commandments were “light” and which were “weighty”

The Primary Call to Love God

Matthew 22:34–40 (ESV)

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.

39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 (ESV)

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Leviticus 19:18 (ESV)

18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Luke 10:25-37, Mark 12:28-35.

First and Greatest

First: The Spirit’s first priority and emphasis in the Church is for God’s people to grow in their love for God.

However, our natural tendency is to focus first on gaining more blessing on our circumstances—more money, honor, comfort, influence, etc. If we do not understand that God is committed first to helping us grow in love, we can be confused about His leadership in our life.

A. Voluntary Love

1. How do we actually love God?

Love cannot be forced

Love cannot be taken it can only be freely given.

You didn’t force your spouse/significant other to love you, they had to freely choose it.

How did they choose it?

They had to know you

Had to experiene you

2. How do we grow in our love for God?

We are to love God with ALL OF WHO WE ARE

Matthew 22:37 (ESV)

37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

Mark 12:29–30 (ESV)

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.’

HEART — center of our being, emotions, will, affections

SOUL — our life, pysche, personality

MIND — intellect, thoughts (Rom 12:1)

Romans 12:1–2 (ESV)

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

STRENGTH (resources)

How do we grow to love God in this way?

with all of our being?

This is what is most imprtant to God—> it is the first and greatest commandment

I want to suggest there are five movements.

5 Movements

I. LOVING GOD (Matt 22:37)

1. The way God loves God (1 John 4:8,19)

2. The way God loves you (John 15:9, 17:23)

3. The way we love God (1 John 4:10,19)

II. LOVING OTHERS (Matt 22:39)

4. Loving yourself as God loves you (Matt 22:39b)

5. Loving others as Yourself (John 15:12-13)

I. The way God loves God

1 john 4:8.

1 John 4:16.

Exod 34:6-7.

The hesed love of God — steadfast love

all throughout the psalms.

A. Trinitarian Love

The father loves the son (Matt 3:17, John 3:35)

The son loves the Father (John 14:31)

The Spirit loves the Son and Father.

Fullness of Love

intensity, verocious

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Second Edition) 7. Love

This eternal love of the Father for the Son, the Son for the Father, and of both for the Holy Spirit makes heaven a world of love and joy because each person of the Trinity seeks to bring joy and happiness to the other two.

A. Hesed

“Hesed is a special Hebrew word used in Scripture for God’s love, and it’s used only of God. Hesed is impossible to translate exactly because we don’t have an equivalent English word, but it’s usually translated as mercy, grace, kindness, love, or faithfulness. It means all those things together. I like to refer to God’s hesed as his faithful covenant love. It’s a love rooted in the eternal character of God.

II. The way God Loves You

There is an intensity that he loves us with.

Primarily demonstrated in the death of His son.

A. Magnitude of God’s love

God loves you the same way that God loves God.

John 15:9 (ESV)

9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

John 17:23 (ESV)

23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

B. Gospel Message

John 3:16–17 (ESV)

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.

Ephesians 1:4–6 (ESV) (ESV) “In love he predesinted us”

4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose (good pleasure) of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

1 John 4:9 (ESV)

9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

C. The Ocean of God’s Love

Ephesians 3:18–19 (ESV)

18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

III. The way we love God

A. We love as a reponse to God’s love.

A response of the gospel itself.

The sanctifying (imparting) work of the Holy Spirit (John 17:26)

A. Our love is rooted in God’s Love for us

1 John 4:10 (ESV)

10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:19 (ESV)

19 We love because he first loved us.

B. God imparts His love through his Spirit

Romans 5:5 (ESV)

5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

John 17:26 (ESV)

26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Deuteronomy 30:6 (ESV)

6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

Fruit of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22–23 (ESV)

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

C. Growing in Love for God - CS Lewis

C. S. Lewis described the love of God as something that grows over time—not that God’s love changes but that our awareness of how great it is grows as we continue in relationship with God. Lewis coined the phrase “farther up and farther in” to describe how each day is better than the one before as we grow in God’s love and as all our fears fade away—especially the fear of rejection.

IV. Loving ourselves the way God loves us.

Matthew 22:37–40 (ESV)

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.

39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

A. Loving Ourselves

We struggle to love ourselves.

Love must also be recieved

1. Barriers:

Barriers come from our stories

wounds and sins

our flesh and fallen nature

borkeness in the world

The enemy

The World, the Flesh and the Devil

Pay attention to your:

Thoughts, Soul, mind, heart, etc.

2. Love what God loves

But we are called to love what God loves, God loves us.

In loving ourselves we are agreeing with God

what he feels for us in the grace of God

what he thinks of us in the grace of God

Christ has loved us.

Our love for ourselves: We love ourselves in God’s love and for God’s sake.

3. Loving Yourself (Bickle)

Stage #4: loving ourselves in the grace of God. We love our neighbor as we love ourselves in the grace of

God by knowing who we are in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), along with rejoicing in who God made us (personality, gifting, calling, physical features, etc; Ps. 139:13-17).

Agreeing with God about our value is different from loving ourselves in a selfish way.

As we get our eyes off of others (envy) and off our failures (condemnation), we value and even love who God made us.

4. Loving Yourself - Nemeck

Sean Nemecek: The Weary Leader’s Guide to Burnout: A Journey from Exhaustion to Wholeness

“You also begin loving yourself as God loves you. If the love of God for us in Christ has become our new reality and identity, then we start relating to our self with that same love. We no longer live in the lie that we are worthless, unlovable, rejected, or needy. God’s love for us makes us worthy, loved, accepted, and secure in Christ.”

B. The Nature of Biblical - Self-Love

1. Humble & Confident

This is a humble love. (b/c of sin and the gospel)

But a confident love. (b/c of who God is)

The world loves itself for it’s own sake.

We love b/c God loved us.

We become secure in oursleves and in God’s love

2. God’s Delight in you

Zephaniah 3:17 (ESV)

17 The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Isaiah 62:5 (ESV)

5 For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

3. Love compels us

2 Corinthians 5:14–17 (ESV)

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this:

that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

V. Loving others as Oursevles

Loving others as yourself means

Loving others the way God loves you (John 15:12)

Loving others the way God loves them

Matthew 22:39 (ESV)

39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

A. Jesus’ “new Command”

John 13:34 (ESV)

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

John 15:12–13 (ESV)

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

1. Phil 2:3-4

Philippians 2:3–4 (ESV)

3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

B. Loving Others is connected to loving God

1 John 4:20–21 (ESV)

20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

C. Loving Others Filfills the Law

Romans 13:8–11 (ESV)

8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment,

are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Review

I. LOVING GOD (Matt 22:37)

1. The way God loves God (1 John 4:8,19)

2. The way God loves you (John 15:9, 17:23)

3. The way we love God (1 John 4:10,19)

II. LOVING OTHERS (Matt 22:39)

4. Loving yourself as God loves you (Matt 22:39b)

5. Loving others as Yourself (John 15:12-13)

Application

Commit to growing in love for God

meditating on His Word

Praying for impartation // Holy Spirit

Identify and deal with barriers to recieving God’s love

Barriers come from our stories

wounds and sins

our flesh and fallen nature

borkeness in the world

The enemy

The World, the Flesh and the Devil

Pay attention to your:

Thoughts, Soul, mind, heart, etc.

Doing this in Community

God speaks through people

We experience the love of God through others

Truth speaks and destroys the lies we hear and believe

Live out of the overlow of God’s love for you.

Closing Prayer

EXTRA

Loving Self

Bernard of Clairvaux spoke of the blessedness of loving oneself in God and for God’s sake—that is, to be jealous to be all that He called us to be for His sake.

We are not to walk in false humility that minimizes how much He enjoys loving us and how He wants us to enjoy being loved by Him.

We magnify Jesus as we love ourselves in agreement with His love for us and His “investment” in us.

5 Stages Bickle:

The love burning in God’s heart has at least 5 expressions that are deeply interrelated. Each of these expressions represent the 5 stages of how a believer can grow in love. We seek to understand and walk in all 5 stages simultaneously since they are revealed and imparted to us by the Spirit.

God’s love for God: Each person in the Trinity intensely loves the others with all their heart.

God’s love for His people: He loves His people with all of His heart, mind, and strength.

Our love for God: God’s very own love is imparted to His people by the Spirit (Rom. 5:5).

Our love for ourselves: We love ourselves in God’s love and for God’s sake.

Stage #4: loving ourselves in the grace of God. We love our neighbor as we love ourselves in the grace of God by knowing who we are in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), along with rejoicing in who God made us (personality, gifting, calling, physical features, etc; Ps. 139:13-17). Agreeing with God about our value is different from loving ourselves in a selfish way. As we get our eyes off of others (envy) and off our failures (condemnation), we value and even love who God made us.

Our love for others: We love others in the overflow of experiencing God’s love (1 Jn. 4:19).

Sean Nemecek

God loves you as he loves Jesus

The good news of the gospel is that our search is over. Since we are united to Christ, we are fully and permanently loved. We will never experience rejection from God. More enduring and secure than the love any human father has for his child, the love of God is complete, eternal, and never fading.

God loves every part of you with a full love. He holds nothing back. Right now he loves you just as completely as he loves Jesus. His love will never end because the Father’s relationship with the Son can never end; they are in an eternal loving relationship that you are now part of in Christ.

This is not to say that you have become a part of the divine Trinity but that you enjoy the love that exists within the Trinity.

Hesed

“Hesed is a special Hebrew word used in Scripture for God’s love, and it’s used only of God. Hesed is impossible to translate exactly because we don’t have an equivalent English word, but it’s usually translated as mercy, grace, kindness, love, or faithfulness. It means all those things together. I like to refer to God’s hesed as his faithful covenant love. It’s a love rooted in the eternal character of God.

CS Lewis

C. S. Lewis described the love of God as something that grows over time—not that God’s love changes but that our awareness of how great it is grows as we continue in relationship with God. Lewis coined the phrase “farther up and farther in” to describe how each day is better than the one before as we grow in God’s love and as all our fears fade away—especially the fear of rejection.

Loving Yourself

“You also begin loving yourself as God loves you. If the love of God for us in Christ has become our new reality and identity, then we start relating to our self with that same love. We no longer live in the lie that we are worthless, unlovable, rejected, or needy. God’s love for us makes us worthy, loved, accepted, and secure in Christ.”