Ahavah
Notes
Transcript
Today we are going to be talking about Love, not the love that our world talks about, but real Love. Last week we talked about how God’s love for us motivated Him to provide our free gift of salvation. Today we are going to dig into Love, specifically loving God and how that shapes us. You hear myself and Bro. Bobby mention the two greatest commandments pretty often. Well I have gone over this before about 3 years ago and God has laid this on my heart again, so here we are. As we look at these commands we must remember that it starts with God, if God did not first love us we would not be able to exhibit love 1 John 4:19. This morning we are starting of in Mark 12.
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “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.”
32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
“The scribes” or “teacher of the law” in some translations would have been extremely familiar with the Old Testament. The exchange we see here differs from many of Jesus’ conversations with the religious leaders of His time, there is no disagreement. The scribes had identified 613 different commandments 365 negative and 248 positive, they broke them down even further to heavy and light commandments—more important and less important. So, he asks Jesus which of these 613 commandments is the most important of all of them.
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.’
Jesus answered his question with what the Jews called the Shema. The Shema was a second century confession of faith that we recited two times a day by Jews. It is from Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Deuteronomy 11:13-21 and Numbers 15:37-41. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 is what Jesus quoted in verses 29 and 30, word for word. We are going to break these two verses down. We are going to look at some of these words specifically HEART—LORD—LOVE—HEART—SOUL—MIGHT.
Hear which in Hebrew is Shema. It means to hear or listen, but it is more than that. It also means to pay attention to or focus on . It also means to respond to what you hear like in Psalm 27:7
7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me!
29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Shema also has the meaning of obeying—in ancient Hebrew they did not have a separate word for obey they used Shema. So, if you listen you respond and obey. “Hear O Israel” The commandment starts off with a command to listen and respond to what is heard. Real listening takes effort and it takes action. We then see “The Lord our God, the Lord is One” this points to God’s unity and based on His oneness our love for Him must be undivided. Now to our next word LORD When you see it spelled in all capital letter, it is in the place of YHWH or Yahweh. It is the personal name of God. YHWH means “He will be”. God’s existence is not dependent on anything—He has always been and will always be. The word YHWH is used over 6500 times in the Old Testament. As time passed they begin to use the word Adoni in its place and that is why we see LORD and not YHWH today. They did not want to misuse God’s name that is why they used Adoni in its place.
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.’
“Love” Now on to the next part of the commandment “And you shall love the Lord your God”. The Hebrew word for Love is Ahavah—its basic meaning is affection or care one person shows another.
But it is much more than that. It is a broad term it describes the love of a parent—it describes brotherly love—it describes loyalty—all of these different affections are described with one word in the Bible Ahavah. Now to understand love better lets look at Ahavah and God. In Deuteronomy 7:7-8 Moses tells Israel that God chose them solely based on His Ahavah for them and His promise to their fathers. God doesn’t love them or them or us because we earned it, His love originates from His character. He loves because He is love. God’s love is more than just a felling or an emotion God’s love is an action. In Deut. 4:37 Moses tells the people that because of His Ahavah He brought them out of Egypt. The Shema calls Israel to respond to God’s love by showing love in return. And as God’s love is shown through His actions, so should human love be shown through our actions. God’s ultimate demonstration of His Ahavah was the sacrifice of His Son on the cross for you and I. What should our response be—it should be action—Deut. 10:12-13
12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?
All of these actions are centered around love and if we are not doing them, we don’t actually love God, we just say we do. 1 John 4:19
19 We love because he first loved us.
Our love is rooted in God’s love because without it we could not love. The only way we know what true love looks like is because God demonstrates it to us in His Ahavah for us, it is shown in and through His actions, of which the greatest is through Jesus.
Now we move to the next key word “Heart”. The Hebrew word for heart is often pronounced “Lev”. Now different ancient cultures have had different ideas of how our body works all throughout history. The biblical writers knew the heart was an organ in the chest that sustained life, but they also talk about the heart in many other ways. In the time of the biblical writers they had no concept of the brain or even a word for it. They thought all of the humans’s intellectual activity took place in the heart. You know with your heart Proverbs 14:33
33 Wisdom rests in the heart of a man of understanding, but it makes itself known even in the midst of fools.
Wisdom dwells in the heart or Lev. Your heart is where you make sense of the world and it is also where you feel emotions. You feel pain in your heart, you feel fear in your heart, your heart can be distressed. But you can also experience joy in your heart. In Hebrew to be happy is to be “good of heart”. It is also where you make choices motivated by your desires. According to the bible our hearts are the center of all parts of human existence. Proverbs 4:23
23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
We also know according to Jeremiah the human “heart is deceitful above all”, something had to change, it would take a total renewal of the heart. We need a circumcised heart, a heart that has had the evil and stubbornness removed. As David prayed we need God to give us a pure heart, one filled with God’s Ahavah. We are called to devote our feelings, desires, our future, our everything to God, to love with all of our heart.
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.’
Ahavah
Ahavah
Do we demonstrate our love as God does, do we love like God loves. I know we are not perfect but we should strive to love as God loves us. Jesus makes it very clear it starts with loving Him, knowing that He has loved us. No matter how many times we turn our backs on Him, no matter how many times we reject what He says to us His love continues. Do we live our lives like that, are we gracious and forgiving, do we demonstrate God’s sacrificial love. Do we love Him with all of our heart, do all our desires point us to Him. Are we consumed with Him or the world. Do we love as He does or as the world does.