Back To The Basics

Matthew 22:37–40

Matthew 22:37–40 NASB95

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.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Fundamentals

This passage is the fundamental, the foundation to everything we believe in.

To love God with everything we have.

Just as sports or music, the fundamental foundation is something you never graduate out of.

In Basketball, practicing dribbling or passing is never “done.”

In music, practicing your basic scales is never “done.”

Just like that, the basic fundamental of loving God, we cannot and must not graduate out of.

It is from this basic fundamental that everything we do must flow out of.

Foundation is everything.

In Basketball, from the foundation of basic passing, you build advance passing techniques.

In music, from the solid foundation of basic scales, you build advance playing techniques.

Again, we cannot and must not “graduate” out from this foundation.

Loving God is your greatest calling

Everybody has a calling in their life.

You have heard it so many times...”God has great plans for you!”

This is true. He has great plans for all of you. For all of you to partner with Him in His grand plan of making all things new.

Whether that is by you becoming an engineer, a pharmacist, founder of next Facebook, stay-home mom, dad, pastor, whatever it may be. Every single one of you here are called to partner with Him, to share in the glory of Christ Jesus.

However, there is one common calling that we all share in.

And that is to love God. It is to be a lover of God.

And loving God is a commandment. This is not an option, this is not like looking at a list of colleges available for you to pick and choose. This is not a MacDonald’s menu. This is a commandment.

But there is a very interesting outcome when you obey this commandment. It only benefits you.

When you love God more, you love yourself better.

We live in a generation where people are absolutely dissatisfied with themselves.

Physical looks. Our culture glorifies physical beauty, does it not? So many of us are so dissatisfied with the way we look. We look at ourselves in the mirror and tear ourselves apart. We compare ourselves with those people we see on Instagram.

Personality. Don’t some of us hate our personality? We try so hard to “fit in.” We look at others and wish we can talk like them, be more charismatic like them…

What is even worse is the absolute skewed idea of self-love from the world.

In the world, when someone in consumed with themselves, it leads to pride.

But when you are filled with love for God, you are filled with humility.

If you don’t think you fit into this criteria, you are either filled with the Holy Spirit, or you are too prideful! I can say this with confidence because we are all born in sin!

But when you love God, to begin to see how He treasures you so much. Then you begin to see true value in yourself not in a prideful manner, but in humility. It’s cycle.

Love God = revelation of ourselves = love ourselves = even more growth in love for God = love ourselves even more = even more love for God.. get it?

This is why loving God only benefits you. It’s actually for your good.

So how do we love God?

Heart.

Heart is your will. You must actively be willing to love God.

David set his heart to love God.

Psalm 18:1, “I will love you...”

It’s an active decision that we must make every day of our lives.

It’s a passive thing that just magically comes to be.

Soul.

This is our identity.

When someone asks you “who” you are, what your “identity” is, what is your answer?

Your name? Your race? Your ethnicity? No, your identity is a lover of God.

Mark Zuckerberg’s identity is the Founder and CEO of Facebook. His identity is not simply his name.

When I pull out my identification card, ID, it doesn’t just say my name, it shows the details of my existence.

The details of your existence is that you are a lover of God.

Mind.

Fill your mind with things of God.

Give effort to fill your mind with things of God.

In all this, love…loving God is an active choice. You choose to WILL to love God, you CHOOSE to set your identity as a lover of God, you CHOOSE to fill your mind with things of God.

None of this just magically happens one day, it’s an act.

From that place of love

At the beginning of this message, I said that God has great plans for all of us. Those are called ministry. Ministry does NOT mean being a pastor or having a job that is somehow related to church.

If you are called to be a CPA, that is your place of ministry.

Ministry is where God places us to be the salt and the light of this world.

You cannot be effective in your place of ministry when you are not overflowing with love for God.

It does not matter how good of a CPA you are, if your heart is not filled with love for Him, it does not matter.

It must be from that place of love for God.