Do We Love The Lord?

Introduction

Good morning and welcome!

It is great to finally get to see everyone face to face this morning.

And for those watching live and online this morning, welcome!

Being our first service back in over 2 months, I thought we would sort of ease into things a bit and look at a subject that is very familiar to us.

A subject that we have covered many, many times.

A subject that in very many ways is the mission statement of this church.

And that subject is love.

Loving God and Loving our neighbor.

And I feel like we are almost restarting our a new church and with all things new we need to be reminded of where we are and where we are going.

And we need to establish first, foremost, and upfront exactly what our purpose is and what our mission is.

And the purpose and mission of this church is to spread and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the community that surrounds us.

That includes Stanford.

That includes Lincoln County.

That includes the towns and counties around us.

And that mission will continue until one of two things happen.

Either everyone we can reach receives Jesus Christ and finds a church home to belong to.

Or Jesus comes back and takes us all home.

And until one of those two things happen, we have a mission and a duty to God to fulfill that mission.

And one of the key things about the mission of the church is the question, “how?”

How do we accomplish our mission?

Well, the mission is accomplished and carried out by following and fulfilling Jesus’ commands.

And the greatest command was what?

To love God with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Those are the words of Jesus found in the Gospel of Matthew.

He also says that . . .

Matthew 22:40 NIV - Anglicised

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Meaning that Loving God and Loving neighbor take prescient over every other law, commandment, rule, regulation, tradition, doctrine or anything else out there.

That is the main thing.

And as the Church, we must keep the main thing the main thing.

And the main thing is centered around God’s nature.

Remember, John tells us that God is Love, meaning that God’s very nature is love.

So the main thing is for Christians to be the embodiment and expression of God’s nature to all those around us.

And to do that we have to know God.

We have to know God’s nature.

And we have to understand the nature of love and how that is the fulfillment of our mission.

And the question always remains, what is love?

What does it mean to love God with all our being?

What does it mean to lover our neighbor as ourselves?

And how do we go about doing this in a world that is full of hate and violence?

And a good way to being to understand and really look at this and to take what Jesus has to say about love and also look at the situation and circumstances surrounding both when Jesus said this as well as where Jesus is quoting from in the Old Testament.

We are very astute and have had a great deal of exposure of Jesus’ words in Matthew 22, when he says . . .

Matthew 22:37–40 NIV - Anglicised

Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

But I believe we are less astute when it comes to understanding some of the finer aspects of what Jesus is talking about here and particularly His reference from Deuteronomy concerning loving God.

Give Yourself to God

In Deuteronomy 6, Moses records God’s message to the Israelite people, and says this . . .

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 NIV - Anglicised

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Okay, it sounds identical to what we have already heard and what we already know.

We have one true God and we are to love that one true God with all our heart, soul, and strength.

In other words, love that One True God with all our being, all that we are, and all that we ever hope to be.

But there is much more to it than just that command to in essence be fully devoted and committed to God.

And to get a good understanding, we have to look at everything that is happening and going on around Israel at the time of Moses penning these words.

In the beginning of Deuteronomy 6, we find this taking place . . .

Deuteronomy 6:1–3 NIV - Anglicised

These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, promised you.

So, what is going on at the time here is that Israel has now escaped from the hand of the Egyptians and they have now entered into the wilderness on their way home.

In modern day Christianity terms, they have escaped the bondage of sin and are now on their journey to heaven.

Israel’s physical journey serves as an example of our Spiritual journey.

And they are now close to the beginning of this journey and everything is new and somewhat frightening for them even.

They really don’t know how to get where they need to go.

All they know is that God has led them this far and that the only hope they have is to put their faith in God and trust Him to lead them farther.

And God already knows the struggles and issues they will face in this journey, so God is now going to give them some instructions that are meant to help them along they way and help them make the journey and avoid the pitfalls of the journey.

This, in essence is their mission—To make it home and to make sure everyone else gets home as well.

And these first three verses is God telling them to take to heart what He is saying to them and to remember them, even when things seem to be going well and they seem to be on top of the world.

And the first thing He tells them to remember is . . .

Deuteronomy 6:4 NIV - Anglicised

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Remember who God is and remember that you are children of the One True God.

And once you have grasped and understand that then . .

Deuteronomy 6:5 NIV - Anglicised

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Dedicate and give yourself fully to God.

Experience this personal, meaningful, and lasting relationship with God.

The Israelites did this through the cloud and pillar of fire, through the Tabernacle and later on through the Temple.

We do it through accepting Jesus Christ and the indwelling presence and power of the Holy Spirit flowing in us and through us.

God resided in the Tabernacle and the Temple during the ancient days and now God resides in us, the new Tabernacle, the new Temple.

So, we give ourselves fully to God.

We experience God fully.

We trust God with all our being and love God with all our being.

And God changes and transforms us.

However, this isn’t just a one and done type thing.

This isn’t just a one time, “come to Jesus” moment in our lives.

It is an everyday transformation and dedication to God.

It is an everyday experience of God, trusting and loving God with all our being.

It is something we have to do everyday and we have to be active in it.

Look what Moses writes next . . .

Deuteronomy 6:6–9 NIV - Anglicised

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates.

In other words, fully embrace these things and fully devote yourself to them.

Remind yourself of them every day.

Teach them to your children and grandchildren every day.

Make them a central aspect of your life, every single day.

And we only can do that when we are fully committed to it.

We can only do that when God is central, first and foremost in our lives.

We can only understand what it means to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul, when we are actively involved and experiencing it day by day.

And we do that by our prayer, or fasting, or study, our fellowship, our acts of love toward others.

Our actively doing the work of the ministry that we have been called to.

Self-Reliance vs God-Reliance

However, God knows that we have a tendency to forget.

We have a tendency to grow complacent.

We have a tendency to wander and stray.

A tendency to forget the struggle and oppressive nature of the bondage that sin had over us.

That is why God tells them this. . . .

Deuteronomy 6:10–12 NIV - Anglicised

When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

And He is telling them this because while they were in bondage in Egypt all they could think about was freedom.

When they were set free, the relief came, but then they were focused on getting home, and even though they eventually made it, it was still a struggle and a challenge.

But when they got to the Promised Land, they found it ready for them to inhabit and things were easier.

They were not being pursued and killed.

They were not struggling to find food and water.

They were delivered from their bondage but the work was not done.

They still had to build the nation God called them to build.

But since things were going so well and it seemed like there was no real and present danger, they could relax a little bit.

They could let their guard down.

They kick their feet up a bit.

And they became more self reliant than God reliant and they began to forget about God.

They began to forget about God’s deliverance and God’s command to love Him and to be dedicated to Him.

This is why the point is emphasized again for them to . . .

Deuteronomy 6:13–18 NIV - Anglicised

Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah. Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land that the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers,

Altar Call

Which is the exact place that we find ourselves at many times.

We have grown complacent in our relationship with God.

We have been delivered from the bondage of sin and death.

We have been delivered from other things.

We have been on this journey home, toward our own Promised Land.

And we have forgotten Jesus’ command to Love God with all our heart, our mind, and soul.

And that has become evident because we do not express our love for God by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

We are bitter and hateful.

We have adopted the “it’s all about me” attitude.

We have entered into worship of other, false gods.

We have set up our own idols—sometimes ourselves as idols.

We worship things and people and not God.

Our love and loyalty has been divided.

And we need to do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight.

And that means, we need to repent.

If we have no relationship with Jesus Christ, we need to come into a relationship with Jesus.

If we have forgotten God and wandered our own way, we need to repent of that.

If there is anything creating a barrier or standing in our way of fully experiencing God’s love and fully expressing God’s love by loving others, we need to make that right with God.

So, this morning, what has the Holy Spirit convicted you of?

What has the Holy Spirit told you that you need to make right?

Have you ignored God and God’s commands?

Have you expressed yourself in mean and hateful ways toward others?

Are you willing to make that right?

Are you willing to do something about it?

Remember, when we first stated I said that we have a mission and we are obligated to fulfill that mission until everyone is saved or Jesus comes back.

We can’t fulfill that mission unless the missionaries are in a place where they can engage in the mission.

And we are those missionaries.

So, what will it be this morning? This is your time and your choice to make.