Love the Lord Your God with All Your Heart

Last week, we began our Soul Activity series talking about what it means to love the Lord our God with everything we are.

And this is the critical first step if we are to be able to carry out His purpose for us in the city of Bristol, which is to reach the people of Bristol with the love and life of Christ.

If you weren’t with us last week, you can listen to the audio of last week’s message on the Bristol page of ValleyCommunity.cc.

This week, we are going to take the next step in our Soul Activity, as we learn that in God wanting us to love Him with our everything, there are four main categories that make up our everything; Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength.

And over the next four weeks, we are going to break down each category, starting today with loving the Lord our God with all our heart.

We are going to read a lengthy passage today, but its important that we see the whole story in its entire context. And particularly, the areas of satisfaction that are uncovered in the narrative.

You can begin to turn to and as you do, I will set up our discussion for today.

I can’t get no satisfaction... (lyrics)

When you think about loving the Lord with all your heart, what do you think about?

The Bible tells us in describing the heart in various passages that the Heart is where we find our passions, our will, and our volition. The Bible also tells us that it is out of the heart that our desire to sin finds its root as well.

And on the throne of our hearts, just like the place of primacy over our whole lives like we talked about last week, on the throne of our hearts we are often tempted to place idols.

John Calvin, the late theologian said that, “Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.”

Meaning that if we don’t keep God on the throne of our hearts, we will replace Him with some physical or emotional aspect of creation.

Underneath it all, however, is the quest to be satisfied.

Don’t you want to just be satisfied?

Like a thirst on a hot day, or a meal after a long day, we want to be satisfied.

And to love God with all our heart ultimately means that we find all our satisfaction in Jesus.

Our motivations reveal what or who we are turning to to find satisfaction.

Our will shows us how determined we are to achieve satisfaction in that way.

All of this comes from our hearts, and that is why it is essential in loving God with our everything, to love God with all our heart. To seek our satisfaction, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, in Christ.

Let’s pray.

John 4:1–26 ESV

1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

John 4:1–45 ESV

1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” 27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him. 31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” 39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” 43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.

To set up the scene, there are, first, a few conflicts that are at play here.

First, this is a meeting between a Jew and a Samaritan, and at the time Jews and Samaritans hated each other. The Jews believed Samaritans to be inferior to them because Samaritans were a product of procreation between Israelites and Gentiles during the time when Assyria conquered Israel around 722 BC. Many Israelites abandoned Israel, but those that remained intermarried with incoming foreigners, and the line of Samaritans was born.

Second, this is a midday meeting between a man and a woman, and again, in this culture, a woman would not be able to meet with a man without her husband. This meeting, in terms of culture, is nothing short of scandalous, yet this is the time, culture, and moment that God chose to have this exchange.

Now, there is so much to breakdown in the discussion between Jesus and the woman at the well. There is so much to learn, so much to take away, and we are only examining one aspect of it today, that of satisfaction.

The narrative in John says that it was about the sixth hour, or noon, and it would have been an unusual time for women to come to a village looking for water. It likely that the Samaritan women wanted to avoid other women in her community, presumably to keep from being publicly shunned, given her general character.

So, the woman is surprised to see Jesus at the well (she thought she would be alone), and even more surprised that this Rabbi would ask her for a drink of water. No Jew would willingly drink from a Samaritan’s cup, that’s how much the two ethnicities hated each other.

The woman responds kind of sarcastically, “you Jews only talk to us Samaritans when you are desperate and you want something.” (v.9)

But Jesus responded to her not so He could win an argument, but so that He might win her.

He said that if she knew who she was speaking with, she would ask him for water, and He would give her an everlasting water and she would never thirst again.

But still, the woman responds according to her physical thirst and desire for her thirst to be satisfied in the immediate. “How do you expect to give me water when you don’t even have anything to carry water in? How will you get it out of the well in the first place?” Here is Jesus’ response again from the passage:

John 4:13–15 ESV

13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

John 4:

Now, to win this woman, Jesus needed to win her heart. Not romantically, of course, but spiritually.

So Jesus’s reply to her was to help her lift her attention from her physical needs to her spiritual reality.

The material water would satisfy her thirst only temporarily; the spiritual water would quench her inner thirst forever. The well water had to be drawn up by hard labor; the spiritual water would bubble up from within.

Then Jesus went from the outward physical need, to the inward spiritual deficiency when He called her on her many relationships.

The woman then sees that Jesus is at least a prophet, but tries to distract Him with a worship argument that Jesus quickly shuts down (v. 21-23).

Jesus immediately told the woman that true worship is that of the spirit, which means that the worshiper must deal with God openly and honestly.

How does that connect to the heart?

Well, the woman had been dodging Jesus’ questions, suspicious of Him, and unwilling to open her heart to God up to this point.

Jesus went from her need to be satisfied physically, to her need to be satisfied relationally.

This put the woman in corner, so to speak, where she had to admit her need. And finally, she did.

John 4:25–26 ESV

25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

John 4:

She had this one, small hope, that someday a Messiah called Christ would come and explain to her the mysteries of life.

The Bible doesn’t tell us what mysteries she wants answered specifically, but I think that, at least in part, she wanted to know why her need to quench her thirst could never be achieved, and why her need for relationship had not yet been satisfied.

In other words, she wanted to know if she mattered at all.

Think of her life.

A Samaritan, hated.

An adulterer, shunned.

Multiple marriages, an embarrassment.

No children that we know of, a failure.

And here is a rabbi, breaking the rules, talking to her in public, without her husband present, and who was offering her everlasting life. And in so doing, was offering a way for her heart to be satisfied.

And then, right here, to this woman who didn’t matter, Jesus told her what matters the most. Jesus, in the first person, claims that He is the Messiah in verse 26. She said, “Christ will come and explain things to me,” and He said, “I who speak to you am He.”

Let’s bring this into today’s context.

How many of you in this room, have at one time or another, felt like the woman at the well?

The truth is, all of us have felt like that, at some point.

Because all of us are trying to satisfy what we believe to be the needs of our hearts.

And, essentially, there are three categories of the needs of our hearts:

Physical, Relational, Spiritual

Physical - Health/Well being

Relational - Emotional/Interpersonal

Spiritual - Foundational/Essential

The problem is, that like the woman at the well did at first, we think our hearts can be satisfied by earthly things, and/or aspects of creation.

And while temporarily this might seem true, such temporary, earthly means do not leave us satisfied, do they?

This is one of the reasons why, for those who struggle with addiction, it takes more and more and more and more, because one dose just not cutting it.

The is one of the reasons why we jump from relationship to relationship, because the satisfaction we thought we would get from relationship A didn’t happen, so that must their fault, and I’ll go on to relationship B. But that will break down too eventually, and the cycle will continue without end.

And underneath the physical and the relational needs is our spiritual need.

But we think that our physical and relational feed our spiritual, but its actually reversed.

Our spiritual needs supply and fill and physical and relational needs because when we understand that we have a deep need that only Jesus can fill, we will realize that as we allow Jesus to fill our spiritual need, our other needs can become satisfied because we are no longer relying on a thing or a person to satisfy us, we now rely on Jesus as our satisfaction.

How many of us in this room have sought to be spiritually satisfied through an earthly relationship like the woman at the well?

And how many of us, in that pursuit, have come up empty?

Or how many of us have sought spiritual satisfaction through a physical indulgence?

And how many of us, in that pursuit, ended up in a cycle of addiction and/or dependence, as opposed to the freedom and life that we thought we would enjoy?

Billy Graham - Barry Gibb story

The world tells us to follow our hearts because the world thinks that our hopes and dreams spring from there.

But the Bible says the opposite.

Jeremiah says that the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, who can know it?

And our hopes and dreams come from God, and His design and purpose for our lives in His great plan.

If I follow my heart, I will follow it to my own destruction.

Instead, I need to put my heart in Jesus’ Hands and follow Jesus.

But that’s easier said than done because God’s law is written on our hearts from creation. And, unless we trust in Him, whatever comes along that sounds close to truth, we will mistake for truth.

Listen to this:

“If you’ve every been criticized for being yourself. If you’ve ever been condemned or attacked for wanting the things that you want;

You’re not alone.

We live in an interesting time in history right now, where to be authentic, to be unique, to be yourself, isn’t always a popular choice.

In fact, sometimes it can feel dangerous.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

In fact, nothing is more important than you feeling good, and feeling like the you that you were born to be.

And if you’re feeling stuck right now, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, it doesn’t have to stay that way.

You can change it.”

This is a quote from an ad circulating Facebook right now that promises to upgrade your mind, body, and heart in just 21 days.

And if you click on the ad, you’ll even see words like “spiritual,” “energy,” and so on.

You’ll see testimony of people making more money than ever, losing weight, waking up and feeling great, greeting each day like a welcome friend instead of facing each day like an insurmountable obstacle.

But you know what you won’t see?

You won’t see Jesus.

Sure, you might see some temporary results that make you happy for a moment, but the relieving satisfaction you seek will elude you.

This is the kind of temptation we all face. We are tempted to replace Jesus with something or someone else in our search for satisfaction.

And when we do that, we place unrealistic expectations on that person/thing, because we are now asking it to do in our hearts what only Jesus can do.

We are now asking this person/thing to hold our heart and not break it, when the only person that can do that is Jesus Christ.

Jeremiah 2:13 ESV

13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Here again, God is illustrating the importance of loving Him with all our heart, and that means we seek our satisfaction in Him and Him alone.

Because when are seeking satisfaction, we are asking whatever we are seeking satisfaction from to hold our heart.

But God says, that anything or anyone other than Him is like a broken cistern, a broken jar, if you will, that cannot hold water.

And just like that broken will leak water, so that thing will break your heart.

Why? Because that thing, or that person, isn’t strong enough to hold it.

But Jesus is.

Aren’t you tired of being dissatisfied because your heart is constantly being broken?

Because you cannot seem to find the place in life where you feel significant?

Let’s see what happens when recognize that Jesus is the source and sustainer of our satisfaction, and we love Him with all our heart.

Let’s look at the end of the story of the woman at the well.

John 4:27–45 ESV

27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him. 31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” 39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” 43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.

John 4:

When you realize that Jesus is the source and sustainer of your satisfaction, you will forget why you came to your well in the first place.

V.28 says that the woman got up and left, and left her water jar at the well.

She came there for water at noon on a hot day in the middle east.

She didn’t take any back to town with her.

Because she finally realized that that water wouldn’t satisfy her.

Then, the narrative tells us that she went back to her town, the same town she was afraid of even showing her face in, and told everyone about the Messiah Jesus Christ.

And what happened?

She wasn’t shunned, and verses 39-41 tell us that many Samaritans would believe in Jesus because of her testimony.

Think of how amazing this is.

This woman, who, by her culture’s standards, just a few hours before was a shunned, rejected, insignificant, worthless, and adulterous individual, was now proclaiming to her town the life that she had found in Jesus Christ.

She was now satisfied.

Did her situation change? Did her past all of a sudden magically get erased from everyone’s memory, or even her own?

No.

What changed?

What changed is that she now loved God with all her heart.

She gave her heart to Jesus to hold, and instead of following her heart, she started to follow Jesus.

And then, as the people of her town learned about Jesus, they not only took her word for it, but they gave Him their hearts as well.

And I am not speaking romantically, the way that we understand giving our hearts away in our culture.

I am speaking theologically.

Only Jesus can hold your heart, because only Jesus won’t break it.

That doesn’t mean you won’t ever be disappointed in life, or you won’t ever feel sadness, or pain, or regret.

And it doesn’t mean that other people won’t betray or mistreat you.

But it does mean that when those times come, you can, just like the woman at the well, lift your eyes from your physical situation, and set your sight, and your heart on the hope of Jesus.

Bring band up here

Practical Apps

How We Love the Lord with All Our Heart

Trust Jesus for your next steps, not your heart

Too many of us allow our feelings to be the navigators of our lives. But the problem is, our feelings often lie to us. Our feelings do tell us that something might be wrong, but our feelings are wildly inaccurate (and usually self-serving) when it comes to the reason why something is wrong. When we trust our heart and our damaged feelings, we make enemies of the wrong people, we avoid the wrong things, and we engage in self-destructive patterns that can affect us for years. But if we trust Jesus, we won’t make the wrong enemies, we will abstain from the right things, and the patterns of our lives will be patterned after Christ. And the pattern of Christ is one that gives life.

Learn to be satisfied in the presence of Jesus

My wife and I have 5 kids. Every night we put them to bed at the same time. And every night bedtime is at the same time. Yet every night, it seems like a complete surprise to them that they have to go to bed at all. And we spend about an hour getting everyone’s teeth brushed and pajamas on and into their bedroom, and then another 2 or 3 hours putting them back to bed about every 7-8 minutes.

And you know what is amazing and humbling to me and my wife about this behavior? Our kids are not trying to stay up late. Actually they want to sleep. They just want to be with us, in our presence. Because in our presence they feel secure, they know they are loved, and they can rest. And they come up all kinds of reason why they should be with us.

And isnt that what you want when you’re seeking to be satisfied?

The relief of being able to rest?

And when I think of me, and other Christians, I have to wonder, do I fight so hard to be in Jesus’ presence?

Do you?

So yes, we want to set boundaries for our kids, and we want them to respect us and authority. And at the same time, what I do not want is to give them a picture of Jesus that is mad at them for nothing more than wanting to be with Him.

Jesus wants you to find your satisfaction in Him, and He wants to you to enjoy being in His spiritual presence now, as we await the day when we will be restored and re-united with Him physically.

Understand that physical things cannot produce spiritual results, or lead to spiritual satisfaction

On your note sheet, if you took one, you’ll see a small chart. This is a quick survey through the book of John that highlights all the different ways that Jesus used the physical to illustrate or symbolize the spiritual.

Our problem as hearers and readers, is that we can misunderstand Jesus’ meaning and trust the physical things to do in our lives what only the Holy Spirit can do.

So on the sheet are some examples:

Take for instance, food. Jesus says, in the text we just read, that spiritual food is doing the will of God. When Jesus was spiritually hungry, His spiritual hunger was satisfied by doing what God told Him to do.

What do we do when we are spiritually hungry?

Many Christians demand that their pastor bring some kind of message that will accomplish their spiritual satisfaction, and when the pastor fails to do so, the same Christians will say that they are not being fed.

Its a subtle shift. Our spiritual satisfaction does not come from hearing about the will of God, it comes from doing the will of God.

Why? Because if we do belong to Jesus, and we aren’t doing His will through our lives, we are going to feel frustrated because we are not living out our purpose.

Or how about water?

Some denominations within Christianity claim that it is the water that seals one’s salvation. But Jesus says that that water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit’s sealing of a believer’s salvation. Subtle, but vastly important.

You know, seeking anything or anyone other Jesus for the satisfaction that your heart needs is like running the Boston Marathon and then trying to quench your thirst with a bottle of sand.

As we close today, how many of you are tired of drinking sand?

Are you willing to seek Jesus for your satisfaction, to love Him with all your heart?

To surrender your passions and will to His?

Just like the woman at the well, if you are, He will quench your thirst with a water that will never run dry, and you will never thirst again.

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