Scripture Readings
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Mark 12:28-30
Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, which is the first commandment of all? And 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, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment.
Opening Prayer
Well, gracious God in heaven, we do rejoice and give thanks once again that we have this opportunity to come and to gather together as your people.
We thank you for the great, wonderful gift that you’ve given to us in your word, that it is our only infallible rule for faith and life.
And we look at these passages as we come to them, we pray that your spirit would lead us and guide us, giving us understanding and insight, impressing the truths that are here upon each of our hearts, again drawing us all closer to yourself.
And so we pray that as your word goes forth in the power of the spirit, that it would find within each and every one of our hearts that rich, fertile soil that brings about great and abundant fruit for your glory.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
Introduction: The Moral Law and the Two Great Love Commands
Well, over the past several months, our congregation has been looking at the moral law of God, and in particular, how it’s been summarized in the Ten Commandments.
Unlike the ceremonial laws and the civil laws that were specifically given to the Old Testament nation of Israel, the moral law of God continues to be binding, not just upon the Jews, but also upon the new covenant believers in Christ, and indeed upon all humanity.
For the moral law is rooted in the very nature and character of God, who is Creator and Sovereign Lord and King over all creation.
We also want to remember that the law given in the Ten Commandments is then further summarized in what’s called the Two Great Love Commands.
To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, often considered to be a summary of the first four commandments.
And then to love your neighbor as yourself, summarizing the last six commandments.
Well this morning we want to consider this first and greatest love command. The why and the how of loving God first and foremost in our lives with every fiber of our being.
Context in Mark 12
Here in this passage in Mark 12, Jesus has been facing questions from the religious leaders.
Now, these weren’t sincere questions. Actually, they were intended to be traps and snares that they were laying before Jesus in order to find a way to discredit him before the people and also to find a way that they could bring a charge or make an accusation against him so that they could ultimately then be rid of him.
Well, so far it hasn’t gone well for these religious leaders, as Jesus has really thwarted their heart’s desires.
It’s at this point that now one of the scribes, who is a teacher of the law, asks Jesus, which of the commandments is the first of all? That is, which is the commandment of preeminence? That’s, above all the other commandments, what is the greatest commandment?
Well, Jesus responds by saying in verse 29, verse 30, the first of all 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.
Now we can note here that Jesus, obviously, is quoting from Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 and 5, as we read earlier.
And as an aside, I just want to point out here and remind us that the two love commands aren’t tied to the New Testament. That is, they’re not new commands that are suddenly introduced in the New Testament with no connection to the Old Testament, or in particular, to the Ten Commandments.
As you may know, many Christians wrongly separate the two love commands from the rest of God’s law, really as a way to vainly excuse themselves from having to obey the more detailed commandments.
But the Ten Commandments, the two love commands, and the moral law of God are all one and the same, and they are all binding, continuing to be binding, upon all of mankind.
The Shema and the Oneness of God
Now another noteworthy significance of Jesus quoting from Deuteronomy 6 here is that it further demonstrates that the greatest commandment, and thus the moral law of God, is rooted in the person and character of God.
Again, Deuteronomy 6, 4, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
This is often referred to as the Great Shema, and it’s essentially a basic confession of faith for the Old Testament church, as it declares that there is only one God, the Lord, and there are no other gods besides him.
And this great truth is foundational, then, to the understanding of all the laws and the commandments of God.
Imagine for a moment, if the Lord was merely just one of many other gods, and each of those gods would have their own personality, and each would be commanding something different based on that personality and based on their character. That would bring about great confusion.
Consider, for example, the many idol gods, if you’re familiar with Greek or Roman mythology. And there were often, in those stories about those gods, there’s a lot of arguing and infighting among those so-called gods.
Indeed, they more often acted like sinful man. Then supreme beings, which indicates something about their lack of truth, and that they are just being, they were gods created in the image of man, rather than having a god creating man in his image.
And so, if these gods were actually true though, think about it, there would be chaos. as the gods served would be no different from the sinful, fallible people that are serving them.
It would be foolish to trust in such gods.
And of course, we see the vanity of that, as the psalmist points out in Psalm 115, the vanity of serving dumb, worthless idols that can’t speak, can’t talk, but the one God in heaven can speak, He can talk, and He can do mighty things.
We confess that there is only one God. And this God has one voice.
And hence the call here to hear. And this is an imperative. It’s a command to listen to the voice of the one true living God. One Lord and Supreme Creator and King.
Listen to what He commands and to what He desires of you. Listen to how He calls you to serve, honor, and worship Him.
Indeed, this is what made the declaration of the voice from heaven at the transfiguration of Jesus so significant and so amazing.
In Mark chapter 9, we have Jesus when he’s there transfigured on the mount, and the voice booms from heaven. This is my beloved Son. Hear Him.
Recalling this great Shema, God the Father speaks from heaven, declaring that Jesus is God the Son, and that Jesus speaks as God speaks.
And so we must truly hear Him. Even now, through His Word, and through the Spirit accompanying His Word, we need to hear Him.
Why We Must Love God
Indeed, this is really the first reason as to why we’re to love God, and take heed to His commandment. because it’s been given to us by the Lord himself and we ought to hear him and what he has to say.
Reasons to Love God
- He commands us as the one true God.
- He is the sovereign creator of all things.
Again, we come face to face with this great truth right in the very first verse of the Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
And as the creator, God has the right to require of His creatures whatever He wills and desires. He’s the potter, we’re the clay.
And He calls His creatures. He’s created His creatures to love Him.
And so we’re to love Him because He is the great sovereign Lord who created us and He created all that we see around us.
In fact, all that we are, all that we have and enjoy in this life, including the great beauty of the created world, our friends, our family, our food, our shelter, our clothing, all of it, God has given to us as He is the giver of every good and perfect gift.
And this includes life itself. Life is a precious gift.
God created man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
And He formed and fashioned each and every one of you in the womb of your mothers where you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Not only does He give physical life though. but he also gives spiritual life through faith in Jesus Christ.
In fact, in Christ, we become a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
So yes, God is our creator. He’s our life giver, both physically and spiritually.
And so we ought to love him because of these wonderful gifts that he has given to us.
- He first loved us.
Finally, we note that we should love God because He first loved us.
John declares in 1 John 4,
in this is love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
This love God showed to us through the Lord Jesus Christ by sending his only begotten son that we might have a pathway to this newness of life.
And more importantly, he showed us this love while we were his enemies, while we were in rebellion against him.
And so if God can love us while we were his enemies, while we were unlovable, Well, then certainly we should love Him when He’s now called us to be His children and adopted us into His glorious family.
And we’ve been made, again, graciously adopted into that family of God.
We are His children. And as children love their parents, we are children of God. We are to love our Heavenly Father.
And so these are several reasons why we should love God.
He commands us, He’s our creator and the giver of life and all that we have, and He first graciously loved us when we were unlovely.
And so we must love the Lord our God.
How to Love God: With the Whole Person
But what does it mean to love Him with all our hearts, with our souls, with our minds, with all our strength?
It means that we’re to love him with a complete whole person love that is loving the Lord with every fiber of our being.
Again, Jesus quoting from Deuteronomy six verse five says, 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 complete person love is described here in four ways, but first note that the word all the word always is repeated here for emphasis.
And here, all means all. Nothing is excluded.
We’re to love God, the Lord, with everything that we have. Every facet of our being.
And so how much are we to love God?
With All Your Heart
that as we’re to love God from and with our hearts, our whole hearts, not half-hearted, not just a little bit, not just nine-tenths, but our whole heart is to be given to the Lord and devoted to Him in love and service to Him.
Now the Jews and the Jewish thought that the heart was considered to be the source and the center of all emotions, thoughts, words, and deeds, whether positive or negative,
And so this is why the charge is given in, for example, in Proverbs 4,
watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life.
So all that we think, all that we feel, all that we do, all that we say, all that we express flows from our hearts.
And so to love God with all your heart. is to have Him be the focus and have His glory be the purpose for all your emotions, all your thoughts, all your words, and all your deeds.
And I’ll tell you this, that if you can do that in truth and in the grace of God, it will leave no room for evil.
Be consumed in your hearts with love for God, your whole heart devoted to Him.
With All Your Soul
And secondly, we’re to love God with all our soul, our spirit.
Our soul is our entire self-consciousness. It’s the inner man referred to, or our very essence and being, that which can’t be destroyed by flesh and blood.
It’s that part of us that is immortal and doesn’t die when our flesh dies and returns to the dust.
And the fact that we’re created in the image of God, with living souls, is one of the key things that separates mankind from all the other creatures that God has created.
And it’s the soul that enables us then to have a true spiritual connection with God, our creator, who doesn’t have a body as we do. At least until the revelation of the Son of God.
But we have this spirit so that even when the body is missing and gone, as it will be for one day for each and every one of us, lest the Lord tarry, our souls will always be with the Lord.
That’s the great comfort of Psalm 23, that the good shepherd Jesus leads us, guides us through the valley of the shadow of their death, on through death. To the other side, He’s with us.
He’s with us in this life, providing us, comforting us. He leads us through death. He’s there on the other side as well, presenting us that great banqueting table in the presence of the Lord.
And it’s that our souls that are there with Him, because God is spirit.
And so the way that we love God, with all our souls is by being renewed by the Spirit and reestablishing that connection that was lost at the fall because of our fallen and sinful nature.
And that we become now new creations in Christ with the very Spirit of God now dwelling in us. and bringing forth good and abundant fruit for God’s glory.
Indeed, we especially love God with our souls when the Spirit is at work in us and enabling us to bear those fruits of the Spirit.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, against which such there is no law.
So when we pursue those things, when we bear that fruit of the Spirit, we’re loving God with our souls, all our souls.
With All Your Strength
And thirdly, we’re to love God with all our might or strength.
And this infers two things.
First, physical body strength and faculties. That is how we use our body.
We should love God by glorifying Him with our bodies.
The Apostle Paul makes this clear in 1 Corinthians 6, saying,
for you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.
Your body doesn’t belong to you if you’re in Christ Jesus. You’re bought with a price that belongs to Him. Glorify God with our bodies.
And again, we know it’s easy, especially in today’s world, filled with temptations, even at your fingertips, to abuse and misuse our bodies, to subject them to the idolatry of self, and to lust, to gluttonies, and to the other empty pleasures that Satan desires to ensnare you in.
The command to love the Lord your God. The one who created you, giving you life, who created your body for your good and His glory.
This command to love Him with all your strength is a call to care for your bodies for what He has made them in Christ. Temples, dwelling places of the Holy Spirit.
Committed to serving and glorifying Him with your physical strength and all your faculties.
But loving God with all your strength can also relate to what we call our will or desire, right?
So what we want to do and what often leads then to our actions in doing that.
So that loving God with all your strength and might means that we commit ourselves to bending our wills to God’s will, to deny ourselves and to deny our own selfish pursuits and to serve him first and foremost in our lives.
With All Your Mind
Finally, we’re to love the Lord with all our minds.
And though this in some way falls under loving the Lord with all your heart, as we noted, Jesus here separates it out in order to emphasize that it truly is every part of a person that is to love God, even with our thought processes and the way that we reason and think.
And so it’s our intellect, our dispositions, and our general attitudes.
But it’s not just our intelligence. but it’s our intelligence in action. How and what we think and the results of that leading to what we do.
Indeed, we love God with our minds by thinking on godly thoughts.
We have that beautiful passage that the Apostle Paul gives us in Philippians 4 when he says this,
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there’s any virtue and if there’s anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things.
Again, there’s so many things, distractions that Satan has in the world to ensnare us, to distort our thinking.
Paul says here, to meditate on these things, the good things, the pure things, the things that come and flow from God.
And so we discover then that love for God is to be this total and complete devotion of the whole person.
All your heart, completely and totally.
All your soul, completely and totally.
All your strength, completely and totally.
And all your mind, completely and totally.
With the whole person. Every and all parts. Every fiber in your bodies and being.
You’re to love the Lord your God.
Practical Ways to Demonstrate Love for God
So how do we, maybe in some more practical ways, accomplish this?
I mean, we’ve mentioned a few, but how do we demonstrate our love for God with this complete whole person love?
Well, again, we must first remember that we can’t truly love God, or anyone for that matter, without his love first being given to us.
The Apostle John, again, makes this abundantly clear.
1 John 4:19, we love because He first loved us.
I want you to meditate once again on this glorious truth for a moment.
God, who is the creator of all things, and here we are, just these insignificant creatures numbering today in the billions.
We’re just one little grain of sand on a beach or in a desert of all the sand in the world.
Psalm 139 says that God’s thoughts are more than all the sand of the sea.
And you think about this, all the sand that’s out there in the sea and the desert, even out here in this lot, you’re just one little grain. a sand in the sight of an almighty, omniscient, all-powerful God.
And yet, He loves you.
He loves you and He knows you deeply and intimately.
And He loved you so much that even when you were unlovely, Even when you were in rebellion against Him, when you were in sin, and you were defying Him, because of your fallen and sinful nature, He loved you.
He loved you so abundantly that He gave His Son for you.
Even giving up His Son to suffering and death on your behalf, in your place, because of your sin, because of my sin.
Christ endured what He did on the cross for you.
Because of God’s great love for you.
He’s given you life, and He’s provided for you a new life in Christ Jesus.
And if you think about and meditate upon this alone, these things standing alone would demand that you would love God with respect, devotion, and worship.
He loves you greatly and abundantly beyond what you could ever possibly imagine.
Don’t ever, ever forget it.
And so whether it’s privately or when you’re publicly gathered together as his covenant people, worship him because you love him.
But it’s not just in worship.
In all your relationships in life, you can build a firm and lasting foundation if the love of God and the love for God is evident in your lives.
And we see that even in the early church, in the book of Acts, as you read the book of Acts, it’s their great love for one another and how they’re serving one another and loving one another, that others in the community are looking and saying, what is going on with these people?
Look how they’re getting along, look how they’re loving one another. I want to be a part of that.
And it becomes a great witness.
And it led to the further expansion of the gospel and the spread of the gospel and the growth of the church.
And so that’s devotion. And our love to God. Is of course loving one another.
And you’ll have to come back next week to hear that message.
And so you should exhibit your love to God also by continually giving thanks and presenting yourselves as a thank offering to him because of all that he has done for you.
Giving thanks for the renewed blessings you received each and every morning.
Just this morning, God renewed his all sufficient grace for each and every one of us to sustain us, to get us through whatever we’re gonna face this day. and He’ll do the same tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, because He is forever faithful to sustain us with His grace.
And so worship, devotion, and thanksgiving are certainly key ways to show your love to God.
Obedience as Expression of Love
But another way that you show your love for God is by obeying His commands.
Now, throughout Scripture, it’s interesting That when we’re called to love God, it always seems to be connected to obedience to His laws and commands.
God has given us His law to show us how we can love Him.
And we show that love to Him. by obeying His commands.
Again, this throws water on those who would teach that the law of God is of little value to the Christian.
And again, I’m sure you may know, people, there are many Christians who have this faulty idea.
I don’t want to deal with the law. That’s the Old Testament. We’re now under grace.
They want to say, well, we should be New Testament Christians. We should be a New Testament church.
We don’t need the law because we now are under grace.
And again, this is very common in Christianity today.
Now, it’s true. Indeed, we acknowledge that the law has limits.
The law can’t save. The law can’t redeem. The law can’t sanctify.
No, in fact, its purpose is to bring conviction of sin and to bring condemnation for those who don’t repent, who would trust in law keeping for their salvation.
Salvation, we know, isn’t of works, but of the grace of God alone, through faith alone.
But friends, we can’t conclude then, as money sadly do, that the law is of no importance whatsoever to the Christian.
James says, faith without works is dead.
Then he goes on to say, show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
And what are those works? It’s what God has given in His law.
And so the law is God’s revelation to us as to what He requires of us as His creatures and how we as His covenant people may please and glorify Him.
And we can add also here how we may show our love of God both to Him and again as a witness to others.
Scriptural Connections Between Love and Obedience
Consider for a moment this sampling of the Testament and Scriptures regarding the intimate connection between the love for God and the keeping of His commandments.
We see this, first of all, in the context of Deuteronomy 6, in verses one and two.
Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I commanded to you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.
Then he goes on to say, Then you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, with all your strength.
And then verse 6,
And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children.
to surrounding the command to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, is this charge to keep and observe all of God’s commandments.
And not only that, but to pass them on to your children, so they can pass them on to their children, and so on and so on for generations.
But then after the Israelites had conquered the land God had promised long ago to their fathers, Joshua reminds them of this very duty, to love the Lord by keeping His commands.
Joshua 22, but take heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.
And then much later, after they had been thrown out of that land because they refused to obey God’s commands, because they refused to love him as the one true living God, And yet God promised to bring them back.
And so Nehemiah, upon hearing of the disarray and the condition of the city of Jerusalem, he prays and reminds the Lord of God’s covenant.
He says,
I pray, Lord, God of heaven, oh, great and awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments.
The love of God is connected to keeping his commandments.
And of course we have Jesus. Very direct words to the disciples in John 14,
if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
And again, as we’ve seen, the apostle John later recalls this when he asserts,
by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.
Love for God and obeying His commands are inseparable.
If we love Him, we must keep His commands.
And as John just noted here, the moral law of God, His commandments, are not burdensome.
They’re our guide to righteous and holy living.
They’re our guide as to how we can show God that we truly do love Him.
That we’re truly thankful for the love for which He’s shown to us through Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
And so what is our conclusion then to all this?
Beloved of God, remember, you can’t truly love God. nor anyone else, unless you have His love.
Again, knowing that He loved us first,
1 John 4:10, and this is love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes on Him might not perish, but have eternal life.
Friends, the cross is God’s greatest demonstration of love for you.
If you don’t have Christ, then you don’t have love.
And if you don’t have love, remember the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. He basically says, if you have love, you’re nothing and you have nothing.
Friends, you can receive this gift of love from God. when you’re drawn close to Him, when you repent and turn from your sins and trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.
And the love of God and the grace and the mercy of God will be poured out upon you in great abundance.
And once you have this love, never forget that you’re called to have an attitude of gratitude, giving thanks to Him, giving worship to Him, and showing your love for Him by keeping His commands. and by bearing fruit in the way that you live your lives and the way that you touch the lives of others, so that they too might come to love the Lord, the one true God, with all their hearts, with all their souls, with all their minds, and with all their strength.
Beloved God, love the Lord your God then to the glory and praise of his name alone.
Closing Prayer
O gracious God and heavenly Father, we do praise you and thank you, Lord, for your word.
We thank you for this important reminder of this call that we find throughout the scriptures, that we are to love you.
And we might even think, how can we even argue with such a thing?
You created us. Certainly we should love you because we are here because of you.
But especially for those in Christ Jesus, we rejoice and give thanks that you loved us even when we were unlovely, even when we were in sin and rebellion. that Christ Jesus died for us.
And there’s no greater love than that.
And we praise you and thank you.
And we pray, Lord, that you would truly, by your spirit, impress that great truth upon each and every heart that is here, drawing each and every one closer to yourself, that we would see your love demonstrated to us in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he accomplished for us.
Paying our sins so that we might have forgiveness, that we might have peace and reconciliation with you, so that we might be bathed and showered daily in your never-ending, everlasting love.
And Father, we pray that as those who have been blessed with your love, we pray that you would give us the grace and the strength to be faithful to truly love you with all our hearts, all our minds, all our souls, all our strength. you would give us that whole person love for you, and all that it means, all that it entails, and that we would seek to obey your commands, to live upright and holy lives as your spirit works in each of us, a sanctification as we strive to become more like Christ who lived perfectly,
And that is our goal, to be like Christ.
And we know we will not achieve perfection in this life, but we pray, God, that you would give us all the earnest desire, even as we sang earlier from Psalm 63, that we would seek and thirst after you to be like Christ, to be in the presence of your love more and more until that day when we are eternally and forever in that glorious presence.
And so Father, we again praise you and thank you for these things.
And then we pray again that the spirit would apply these truths to our hearts, drawing us all closer to yourself.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.