I EXAM
"Are You Loving God With All Your Strength?"
Intro:
Are you loving God with all your strength? Right now, on the top of your sermon notes, I'd like for you to put down an answer, using a 1 to 10 scale - with 1 being not loving God and 10 being loving God with all your strength.
T/S: Now here's where we get to the nitty-gritty ? what is meant by ?loving God with all your strength?' Is this a measure of our effort, as in ?I am trying to love God completely.' Or this a measure of our sincerity, as in ?I am loving God deeply.' I want you to think about this, because we often hear this verse of Scripture and associate it with the same answer that many a child has given their mother when told to finish cleaning their room: "I'm trying as hard as I can."
Ever hear those words? I'm trying as hard as I can. Ever say those words? So many people trying to follow Jesus as one of His disciples, find themselves in desperation or frustration saying, ?God, I'm trying as hard as I can.' And believe that's what the Bible and God are asking them to do.
(ill) A friend was telling me the other day that his doctor told him he needed to get more exercise. He said, "I have changed and I have been getting more exercise. I used to watch golf on TV. Now I watch tennis."
T/S: Many a Christian tells themselves that they are loving God with all their strength, trying as hard as they can ? but they don't make the changes God asks for, and they are left wondering why things don't work out in their life. I want to look at God's desire for us more literally this morning, beginning with the passage of Scripture from Mark 12 that has served as the introduction to this series of talks I'm calling I EXAM. My intent is that we explore Jesus answer to the question ?What is the greatest commandment?' and from His answer find some benchmarks that we can aim for as we clarify our spiritual vision for 2007. And crucial to unpacking Jesus' words in Mark 12, and for that matter, elsewhere in the Bible, is understanding that Jesus is not saying, "try hard."
Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Mark 12:29-31 (NKJV)
So far we have determined that each phrase of Christ's answer is a specific reference to a part of a person. Jesus explained that God the Father wants us to love Him with our heart, that is, our will and desires. That requires a transformation of what we want and what we choose. God the Father wants us to love Him with all of our soul, which is the coordinating agent of our inner person through which all of our faculties operate. That requires a transformation of our inner person, a new birth followed by a steady maturing of our soul into God's likeness. Thirdly, Jesus answer tells us that God the Father wants us to love Him with all of our mind, and last week we explored how that demands a transformation of our what we think about, and how we emotionally respond and react to life.
The final phrase of that sentence is that God the Father wants us to love Him with all of our strength. What's left to make a whole person in addition to that person's mind, will and soul? Our bodies! We are physical beings, as well as spiritual beings, and frankly, the only way that we can determine what's happening in our spirit is by what's happening in our body. Understanding this gives us great insight into reading James explanation of why works are required to prove faith. Maturity means realizing that misguided effort does not replace the request for genuine change and transformation.
(ill) If your boss asked you to finish the report on Form #10 by Friday, and you worked all week completely Form #20 - what does that effort get you? Is the boss satisfied? Is the job accomplished?
T/S: Over the next 24 hours, if you are an average adult, your heart will beat 103689 times, your blood will travel 168,000,000 miles, you will breathe 23,040 times inhaling 438 cubic feet of air. You will eat 3.25 pounds of food and you will drink 2.9 quarts of liquids. You will also move 750 muscles, exercise over 7 million brain cells and speak 4800 works, including some unnecessary ones. As you go about doing all of those things, some of which you are not even aware of, are you loving God?
God doesn't ask for you to try hard, although trying hard may be what's necessary for achieving what God asks. God asks that you love Him ? with your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength ? your body. For a few minutes, let's see what that means.
If you didn't love God with all your strength, what would happen?
1. Your body would become the focus.
Without the spiritual compass of loving God to direct our lives, we retreat to loving what we can see. We put a premium on appearance, and worship beauty. Vanity becomes such a driving force that the marketplace and economy are driven by people's personal need to beautify and look better. Sound familiar?
(ill) "What's wrong with the world?" a newspaper editorial once asked. G.K. Chesterton wrote in reply, "I am."
T/S: Chesterton wisely understood that we are obsessed with ourselves. And absent loving and worshipping God, we will focus and worship something else. Naturally that falls to our view of self.
For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8:5-8 (NASB)
Now God is not saying that we should ignore our bodies, or be careless about our appearance. Hat would be sloth and laziness. But God's Word reminds us that over-emphasizing what we look like, and the appetites we feel is wrong. It's idolatry. The Bible speaks to vanity, pride, gluttony and lust among many others vices that our bodies pursue when we make our bodies the focus. Which is what happens when we are not loving God with our bodies.
2. Your body would become a tool for sin.
This makes sense, doesn't it? When the body becomes the focus, we create passions and ideas that derail us from following God's will. And ultimately without loving God as our constraint and goal, our bodies follow their basest instincts.
For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. ?Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. Romans 7:5,12-15 (NKJV)
We excuse this practice of sin by saying "That's just the way I am." Or, "God made me this way." What those statements reveal is a total lack of understanding about God and about sin. The history of the world is man's rebellion corrupting God's creation. God made men with more visual stimuli so that they would notice their wives beauty and be ready to affirm her, because women were created with a drive to receive their husband's affirmation and admiration. But when you remove God's loving design from that equation, men become lustful pigs who ogle and undress women with their eyes, while women become narcissistic prima donnas, driven to wear the latest fashion and abandon all modesty so that men look at them.
And folks, that's simply one example. We can explore the roots of our eating disorders and find a distorted desire for love and affection. We can explore the prevalence of gossip and find the tainted desire for power and control. We can view the latent dishonesty around us and discover the pride that strives to create false appearances.
Bottom line: if you do not make loving God with al your strength the goal of your life, you will end up following the desires and drives of your body down a path of sin that takes you farther and farther away from God. We cannot do what we want, take the shortcuts and then plead to God that we tried our best.
(ill) I heard a man the other , reading about an "eat-all-you-want" diet. He said, "I knew there'd be a catch to it. You have to run seven hundred miles a day!"
T/S: There is effort involved in change, but God doesn't just want you to equate good intentions with your best effort. He wants you to make some specific and serious changes.
If you loved God with all your strength, what would that look like?
1. You would live every area of your life humbly before God.
What does humility have to do with our bodies? Simple, it's the antidote to selfishness, to vanity and pride. If you are trapped in a cycle where your body and your appearance is the dominant object of your life, you escape that place by moving towards humility.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Romans 12:1 (NIV)
Our culture invites you to offer your body in sacrifice at the gym, lifting weights and working out. Those are not inherently bad, but I've known people - and I'm sure that you have also, whose workout moved from a healthy part of their life to an obsessive drive. Humility keeps our attitudes about our body in check, because we recognize where we stand in relation to God.
Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. 1 Cor. 6:19-20 (NLT)
How might this look in practical terms? It has to start with your prayer life, meditating on God's majesty and glory, and then praising Him. Genuine praise takes our focus off ourselves and places where it belongs .. on God. Part of our worship - not just in church on Sunday - but everyday, must be acknowledging before god that we belong to Him. Our thoughts, our desires, our choices AND OUR BODIES.
Secondly, we have to practice some spiritual habits of self-denial, like fasting and silence. Fasting - from food, or a specific kind of food, or from some other element of life like TV - trains the body and desires f the body to take their proper place of importance. Jesus said Himself, "Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing." Matthew 6:25 NKJV
Practicing times of silence also gets to the core of our tongue's ability to set our world on fire. Most of us know what it feels like to want to go off on someone and tell them exactly what we think they need to hear. And we are masters of justifying why that should happen, and it be OK. But humility informs us that God is the final word on justice, and most times in life, we speak out in an effort to compel others to our way of thinking, or to justify ourselves to others or simply to defend ourselves. Practice times of silence before God this week, asking Him to reveal your motives and see what happens. And practice silence in the face of others this week, as a test. I don't mean giving anyone the cold shoulder or the silent treatment, but intentionally hearing what you yourself say --- to see how many times you speak out misguided pride.
Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. Luke 9:23 (NKJV)
You see, I believe Jesus was being very literal in speaking to what it takes to love God with all of our strength. Self denial coupled with faithful obedience.
2. You would live obediently to God.
We hope this is tongue in cheek, or simply an ideal to shoot for, or something like that. Because we struggle with Jesus' words:
"If you love Me, keep My commandments. John 14:15 (NKJV)
Let's just think about that for a minute - what comes to your mind? The times this week when you haven't? (Maybe you need to repent.) Perhaps you instantly think ?That's not possible al the time." (Maybe you need to ask God for faith, or examine the Scriptures for more practical methods of discipleship. Get hooked up with a spiritual director or mentor.)
What did Jesus mean? If you love Me, keep My commandments. What if Jesus meant exactly what He said? To love God is to obey God. If we are going to love God with all our strength, we must be committed to faithful, reckless, total obedience to God. And what if the Bible says that is what we are supposed to do, and what we are capable of?
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. ?Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Romans 6:4,12 (NIV)
Salvation is new birth. Being a Christian is conversion from a person of sin to a person of love. Eternal life begins the moment that Jesus Christ is enthroned as the Savior and Lord of your life, and involves the journey and process of becoming more and more like Him. There is a death blow dealt to the sinful inner man when we are faithfully incorporated into God's family, but then we have to embark on a joinery of applying God's grace to our lives every day.
And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Galatians 5:24 (NKJV)
That's discipleship. That's spiritual growth. That's obedience. And it is not optional, left for the super-saints and those who have time and energy to be better Christians. It's for every one of us. Because we have been liberated from pride, liberateed from vanity, liberated from lust, liberated from the base desires of our body.
But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. Romans 6:17-18 (NIV)
Now you have to act according to that truth. Be free. Act liberated. Live as a saved person. In obedience, because you don't have to sin.
I know, you will sin. Nobody's perfect. But you are commanded to aim for perfection, and then receive mercy when you fall short. Not to do the best you can and demand grace to cover your shortcomings. If the best you can is apart from God daily presence in your life, as you deny yourself and strive to become like Jesus ? then it's not the best you can do.
1. Practice humility so that you are in proper relationship to God and your body.
2. Practice spiritual habits that empower you with God's grace to train your body.
Conclusion:
Loving God with all your strength prepares you for eternity.
This process on earth will one day be completed by God and we will be perfect. That's what heaven is.
I have told you this many times before, and now I repeat it with tears: there are many whose lives make them enemies of Christ's death on the cross. They are going to end up in hell, because their god is their bodily desires. They are proud of what they should be ashamed of, and they think only of things that belong to this world. We, however, are citizens of heaven, and we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from heaven. He will change our weak mortal bodies and make them like his own glorious body, using that power by which he is able to bring all things under his rule. Philip. 3:18-21 (TEV)
Are you a citizen of heaven? Acting like a citizen of heaven? Or is God speaking to yu today, calling you out of a spiritual slumber?
(ill) The man huddled on the cabin floor was slowly freezing to death. It was high in the Rockies in southwestern Alberta, and outside a blizzard raged. John Elliott had logged miles that day through the deep snows of the mountain passes. As he checked for avalanches and as dusk and exhaustion overcame him he had decided to "hole-up." He made it wearily to his cabin but somewhat dazed with fatigue, he did not light a fire or remove his wet clothing. As the blizzard blasted through the cracks in the old cabin walls, the sleeping forest ranger sank into oblivion, paralyzed by the pleasure of the storm's icy caress. Suddenly, however, his dog sprang into action, and with unrelenting whines, finally managed to rouse his near-comatose friend. The dog was John's constant companion, a St. Bernard, one of a long line of dogs famous for their heroics in times of crisis. "If that dog hadn't been with me, I'd be dead today," John Elliott says. "When you're freezing to death you actually feel warm all over, and don't wake up because it feels too good."
T/S: That's the spiritual condition of many people today. They are cold spiritually, and sadly are oblivious of their true condition. Thank God for all the ways in which He arouses such sleepers. He sends His messengers to nudge them awake. Sometimes the methods used to awaken them are drastic, but always for their good. Let us not imagine that because He shakes us, He therefore hates us. He awakens us from lethargy because He loves us, and wants to save us from an eternal death.
Are You Loving God With All Your Soul
