We throw out the phrase “love God” often. Christians are supposed to “love God.” Right? What does that mean, and what does it look like to love God with all we are?
Tune into this message as we talk about what it means to love God with all our hearts, all our souls, and all our strength.
Texts: Deuteronomy 6:4-9 & Matthew 22:34-40
Resources: Bible Project Shema Series
TRANSCRIPT:
anytime someone asks about what a
christian is supposed to do people often
say we’re supposed to love love god love
people sometimes we’ll throw and make
disciples but what does it mean to love
god and love people because it seems
like people use that word
very differently in this message we’re
going to talk about what it means to
love god with all of our heart all of
our soul and all of our strength
[Music]
so to start off today’s message i want
to read from matthew chapter 22 starting
in verse 34.
when the pharisees heard that jesus had
silenced the sadducees with his reply
they met together to question him again
one of them an expert in religious law
tried to trap him with this question
teacher which is the most important
commandment in the law of moses jesus
replied you must love the lord your god
with all your heart all your soul and
all your mind this is the first and
greatest commandment a second is equally
important love your neighbor as yourself
the entire law and all the demands of
the prophets are based on these two
commandments now it probably goes
without saying that there is no way that
i’m going to be able to explain fully
what it means to love god with all that
you are and how that has ramifications
in every aspect of your life nor am i
going to be able to fully explain what
it means to love your neighbor as
yourself in fact i would say the way
that we love god and love our neighbors
has been a source of quite a bit of
debate and contention amongst christians
and non-christians what does it mean to
love god well if you really love god you
should act like this
a lot of us when it comes to loving god
though i think we we deem it as
something that is primarily religious
what i mean by that is that we love god
by things that by doing things that we
deem religious like worship prayer
reading our bibles going to church being
a part of a small group
but in fact the early church was
characterized
by their love not just by their
so-called religious or spiritual
practices but by the way that they
loved god by the way that they loved
other people by the way they took care
of orphans and widows by the way that
they were multi-ethnic by all of these
different things that they loved god by
the way that they lived glenn pacquiao
in his book the resilient pastor wrote
that the church the early church was
markedly different in the way they lived
as a result many early roman writers
thought of christianity not simply as a
religion which in the ancient world was
more about rituals than about ethics but
as a philosophy it was a teaching about
a way of life
in fact early christians were referred
to as followers of the way that their
faith steeped into everything that they
did not just what they did on sundays
and so what this message about today
pretty simply is to love god with all
that we are
not just what you deem religious
love god with all that you are
not just what you deem religious because
loving god is something we do with our
whole lives
something we do with our mondays
tuesdays wednesdays thursdays fridays
saturdays and sundays it’s what we do
when we go to work when we rest when we
play when we interact with family when
we’re in the car when we’re frustrated
it’s about what we think about it’s
about what we do with our feelings it’s
about literally you name it every aspect
of our lives but a lot of us have this
idea of loving god being primarily
something that is concerned with what
happens to me when i die
which certainly it is relevant to that
but more so when god invites us or calls
us to love him with all that we are it’s
something that is supposed to infect
every aspect of our life and to look at
that we’re going to look at a passage in
deuteronomy chapter 6 starting in verse
verse 4 and looking through verse 9.
this is where jesus gets what he’s
saying here about loving the lord with
all that we are
and in ancient jewish practice this and
some other
verses became known as what was
called the shema which means to listen
or hear
and for thousands of years jewish people
would have prayed these words
morning and evening as a way of
expressing devotion to god
and so as we read this
i know that hearing the phrase love god
and hearing the phrase love people can
sound really trite because it sounds
strike to me
but recognize that no matter how hard
you try this side of eternity you will
never be able to fully love god with all
you are it’ll be an ongoing journey of
you becoming more and more and more like
jesus so let’s read from deuteronomy
chapter 6 starting in verse 4 and
reading through verse 9 it says listen o
israel the lord is our god the lord
alone and you must love the lord your
god with all your heart all your soul
and all your strength and you must
commit yourselves wholeheartedly to
these commands that i’m giving you today
repeat them again and again to your
children talk about them when you’re at
home and when you’re on the road when
you were going to bed and when you were
getting up tie them to your hands and
wear them on your forehead as reminders
write them on the doorposts of your
house and on your gates
so this passage indicates that it’s
something that we are to do with all of
our lives when we wake up when we go to
sleep we’re supposed to instruct our
children we’re supposed to
write it on our doors posts and on our
gates so that anytime we go anywhere we
remember love god with all that we are
so this passage opens up with the word
shema which as i said earlier means
listen or hear but in ancient hebrew
listen wasn’t just about letting
something come in your ears and
processing it or even just understanding
it it certainly pertained to
understanding it but it was also
involving action
that listening and obeying were like two
sides of the same coin so when it says
listen it’s
pay attention focus obey
shema
israel and in the next phrase you’ll see
it on the screen right here in
hebrew and in hebrew you read it from
right to left and it says
now you notice when i was reading it i
said allah instead of yahweh so
traditionally
in hebrew when you get to the word
yahweh you read it as adonai which is
the hebrew word for lord so in your
english translations when you see the
word lord in capital letters that’s a
reference to god’s particular name
yahweh he is he will be interestingly in
this
phrase
there is
no need for the word is
in hebrew now if you notice in your
english translations there’s different
ways that people have translated it uh
the lord is our god the lord is one or
the lord our god the lord is one or a
couple of them and
there’s not really a huge difference in
it but perhaps slightly different
emphases but what i think i is important
here is to understand that the call for
israel is not to love any god
any god that they deem worthy of their
honor or devotion anything else their
call is to love yahweh which one yahweh
the one true god he’s the only one who
they’re supposed to worship and who’s
god is it he’s our god
and so for us what does that mean it
means i think we are called to love god
not just the idea of god
we’re called to love god not just the
idea of god what does that mean it means
that a lot of us like to fashion god in
our own image we think god is like this
and so we come to love the idea of god
rather than loving the god who is in
here we say that god is this or this or
this or this but really
god is surprisingly it seems in that
mindset like us he thinks like i do he
probably won’t like i do but if we read
the scriptures
god is other he is holy he’s beautiful
he’s majestic he does things that are
different than the way that i would do
them why because he’s god and i am not
the lord alone is our god and we are
called to love god not just the idea of
god and if i can put it even further
we’re called to love god not just what
god might offer us
we’re not called to love god just to
earn our way into heaven we’re called to
love god because he is worthy of love
and adoration and he has loved us
immensely so we love out of an overflow
of his love for us not to earn god’s
favor we don’t love god just so that we
can get the blessings from god just
being with god being in his presence
having a relationship with him is so
incredible that the call for us i think
is to love god even if that means we
don’t get the blessing and hear me i do
believe god wants to bless us
but sometimes we think if we love god
enough god will bless us
in a certain particular way that we want
to be blessed but the truth is that’s
not always how it works we’re called to
love god not just what god might offer
us because if we’re loving him for what
he might offer us we’re really treating
him as a genie in a bottle and our god
is not god our god is us because it’s
really about what i get not about him
and who he is and what he deserves which
is all glory all honor all praise all
worship forever and ever amen
we’re called to love god not just the
idea of god or even what god has to
offer us
and so then we get to this phrase love
what does love mean
that’s a word we throw out a lot i love
my wife i love my kid i love ice cream i
love rock climbing but what does it mean
to love here it’s referring to the
affection or care for another person to
have
care and affection towards god god’s
love originates from who he is it’s not
something that is a duty for him it’s
just who he is god is loving so he loves
out of an overflow of who he is in the
scriptures it’s both a feeling
and an action god’s love propels him
towards acting on the behalf of those
whom he loves
furthermore
for us
our call to love god is not something we
do to earn god’s love it’s a response to
his love for us we love because he first
loves us and we respond to god’s love by
loving god and loving others that the
way that we treat our neighbor the way
that we treat other people the way that
we listen the way that we take care of
the poor the orphan the widow the
oppressed
the way that we do all those things
matters and pertains to how we love god
with all that we are
so
how do we love the lord our god with all
that we are what do we learn from this
deuteronomy passage it says love the
lord your god with what all your
heart
so in ancient hebrew this make probably
makes sense but they had a different
connotation for what the heart was in
some extent
for us in our modern context we know the
heart pumps blood
we know and we look at the heart as
something uh concerning feelings in
ancient hebrew they didn’t have a
concept for a brain and so the heart was
kind of both heart and brain it was the
seat of thoughts and emotion it was
really the center of all parts of human
existence thoughts emotions the
generator of physical life and also
where choices come from out of the
desire
of one’s heart
all intellectual activity in the
scriptures or is considered to have
taken place in the heart for example to
know something in your heart to
understand something in your heart to
discern something to have wisdom
things like pain and fear are something
that we experience in the heart the
phrase a broken heart even comes from
ancient biblical hebrew there’s a one
bible project video pointed out
to be happy in the scriptures is to be
good of heart or to have a heart of joy
the heart is incredibly significant
because it is the center of all parts of
human existence in proverbs
chapter 4 verse 23 for example
it says guard your heart above all else
for it determines the course of your
life the heart is incredibly significant
and we learn elsewhere that out of the
heart the mouth speaks
so loving the lord with all of our heart
means that we love him with the center
of all of us our thoughts
our emotions the words that come out of
our mouth the choices that we make
seemingly minuscule choices that we are
to love god with all that we are if
you’ve ever been in a situation where
you something comes out of you maybe you
got cut off in traffic or someone
wronged you or you just didn’t sleep
well and you respond hastily with anger
with bitterness in a way that wasn’t
warranted
that speaks to something going on with
our hearts the call to love god with all
the
of our hearts is is about reorienting
our hearts affections to love him and
desire him more than we want anything
else jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9 says
that the human heart is the most
deceitful of all things and desperately
wicked who really knows how bad it is
but i the lord search all hearts and
examine secret motives i give all people
their due rewards according to what
their actions
deserve that our hearts are incredibly
important in the natural dispensation of
our heart is not
totally towards god
it’s towards other things and so loving
the lord with all of our heart is
incredibly important because when we
love the lord with all of our heart and
we seek to do that it means that we want
all of us to be formed to be more like
jesus in absolutely everything that we
do
the next phrase that it says is to love
the lord your god with all of your
soul
now one bible project video i pointed
out that this is an unfortunate word not
because soul is a bad translation it’s
not it’s that we have bad connotations
with the word soul and by bad i just
mean that they’re more associated with
greek philosophy than they are with
scriptural teaching that our concept of
the soul is is akin to
if you know that old kind of blue grass
hymn
type song i’ll fly away o glory i’ll fly
away oh glory uh fly away
sorry that i fought off too low but
when i die hallelujah by and by i’ll fly
away
that our concept of the soul for a lot
of us is something like that that we are
uh souls with bodies that uh the soul is
this immaterial part of us that will
evaporate from our bodies when we die
and transcend into heaven to be forever
with god
certainly the scriptures do pertain to
what happens after we die but biblically
speaking it’s more accurate to say that
you are a soul then you have a soul it’s
more accurate to say you are a soul then
you have a soul
it the word in the scriptures for soul
in the old testament is a word in the
fesh it occurs over 700 times in the old
testament
literally it can sometimes mean
something like throat which sounds weird
but what do we use to
get water that we need to live we use
our throats there’s a psalm i believe
it’s psalm 42 that says as a deer pants
for water so my soul thirsts for you my
soul thirsts for god the living god
right it’s pulling on this metaphor of
throat that as a deer desperately needs
water to survive my entire being
needs the lord god to survive
so soul refers to a whole being
and if you look at words for murderer
sometimes it will be something like a
nephesh slayer or a kidnapper a nephesh
thief
interestingly in genesis chapter 1 both
humans and animals are called living
nephesh on the in the beginning of the
bible
uh corpse is a dead nephesh so once
again you are a nephesh you are a soul
you don’t just have one and so what is
this saying that with all of your living
breathing being all of you
love the lord your god not just with
what you deem religious aka what happens
to you when you die or what seems to be
a religious issue
love the lord with your whole being
right with your all your heart and all
your soul so why is that relevant right
if you’re loving the lord with your
physical existence it means what you do
with the money you’ve been given matters
it means that what you do with your body
matters it means that how we steward our
sexuality matters it means that how we
take care of the orphans and widows and
the poor and oppressed and marginalized
matters it matters what we do with these
bodies that we have been given why
because we are to love the lord our god
with all of our heart all of our soul
and then lastly all of our strength in
this word strength comes from a word
it happens some 300 times in the bible
but
it doesn’t necessarily mean like
physical strength you know like
love the lord with all that you can
bench press maybe you can bench press a
lot but
most times in the bible it’s translated
as an adverb
very
or much to love the lord with all of
your muchness which if that doesn’t make
sense track with me for just a second on
the sixth day of creation after god had
made humans he said that it was
very good mailed
good it intensifies the meaning of other
words it’s not just strength as in
muscle power you could think of it as
muchness as in every possibility
every capacity every opportunity you
have it can refer to almost anything
that’s what for a better treatment on
this you can check out a bible project
video on me or strength they dive really
deep into this so you may be wondering
where do we get this word
strength in our translations well most
likely it comes from greek
so when the hebrew scriptures or the old
testament
which most of which was written in
hebrew was translated into greek they
translated me
as dunamis which means power or strength
but interestingly in the translation to
aramaic they translated it
wealth like love the lord your god with
all your wealth all the things that you
might have your strength and your wealth
and then jesus when he refers to this he
says to love the lord your god with all
of your mind or sometimes power the idea
is love the lord with all of your
muchness
with all your heart all your soul and
all your muchness with everything that
you are all that you might be every
opportunity every capacity every
limitation love the lord your god with
all that you are we are called to love
god with all we are not just what we
deem religious we are called to love him
in all that we do and then we go on in
deuteronomy chapter 6 where it says and
you must commit yourselves
wholeheartedly to these commands that i
am giving you today
or that they will be on your hearts in
other words that they are at the
forefront of your thoughts and your
emotions that in everything that you do
you are considering god
right when was the last time you thought
about that when something came up with
when you were online or posting or about
to post or when you got cut off in
traffic is the lord who is on your mind
see at the forefront see it the seat of
all of that
then it says repeat them again and again
to your children talk about them when
you’re at home and when you’re on the
road when you’re going to bed and when
you’re getting up tie them to your hands
and wear them on your forehead as
reminders write them on the doorpost of
your house and on your gates i love this
thing about teaching your kids to love
god and to follow after him for me
the most important thing that i care
about for my son
is that he will grow up to love jesus
if he learns to ride a bike that’s great
i plan to teach him if he’s good at an
instrument that’s great but what i want
for him is i want him to desperately
love jesus and love others that’s what i
want for him i want him to be
passionately in love with jesus and so
my hope and my desire is to instruct him
in that way
to teach him about the goodness of god
to teach him how to study the scriptures
for himself to give him space to doubt
to wrestle to ask questions to develop a
personal relationship with the triune
god because i believe he’s worthy of all
worship and he is good and faithful and
kind and so i
want to repeat these things back to my
son
and and what does that mean for me it
means i repeat them to myself
it goes on in here to say talk about
them when you’re at home when you’re on
the road and goes through these like
seemingly opposite things when you’re
here or when you’re there when you wake
up or when you go to sleep does that
mean you only think about them or repeat
them or love god when you wake up and
when you go to sleep no i think it’s
getting at in from when you wake up to
when you go to sleep all of it love god
when you’re here when you’re there when
you’re on your way all of it love god
then there’s this instruction about
tying it
to your hands and wearing them on your
forehead as reminders
there’s a jewish practice that involves
like a
a prayer box that uh
orthodox jews and some others will wrap
around them it’s called the teflin and
the thefiline
contains various
verses
pointing to
when i look down at my wrist
i remember
the command to love god with all that i
am when i
hear when i go and i walk through the
doorposts in my house or on my like look
at my gate i see it i’m reminded i keep
it at the forefront of my mind both
in physical ways and other ways so what
does that look like for you
what does it look like to love the lord
your god with all that you are
maybe for you you realize that you’ve
been loving the lord with what you deem
religious
that you love the lord just by going to
church and hearing that’s important i
believe it is you love the lord by
reading your bible and that is a way
that you express your devotion and your
love to him but i believe you also love
the lord by the way that you take care
of the poor the orphans the widows by
the way that you listen to people i
believe you love the lord by the way
that you interact with someone when most
people would be impatient i believe you
love the lord by the way that you tip
at a restaurant you love the lord with
the way that you interact with a spouse
or roommate or a friend by where you
extend grace when it doesn’t seem like
grace should be extended where you
extend forgiveness where it doesn’t seem
like it should be extended where you
stand up against injustice when it seems
like the easier thing would be to not
we love the lord our god with all that
we are and so the challenge for this
week honestly is just to consider
in everything that you do
just try to bring that to mine is this
loving god what i’m doing
is this loving god
maybe you haven’t even thought about it
our call is to love the lord our god
with all that we are not just what we
deem religious hey well thanks for
tuning in i hope and pray that this
message blessed you obviously this is a
different format than what we normally
do uh the audio file got corrupted from
sunday so we recorded this at my house
and so hope and pray it was a blessing
to you and that you have a wonderful
week wherever you are and that
you grow closer to jesus because at the
end of the day that’s what matters