One of my favorite movies is Fiddler on the Roof. Golde, the wife of Tevye, asks her husband,
“Do you love me?” Tevye replies, “Do I
what?” Golde repeats, “Do you love me?”
Tevye responds - “Do I love you?” “With
our daughters getting married and this trouble in the town you're upset, you're
worn out, go inside, go lie down! Maybe
it's indigestion.” Golde again says, “Tevye,
I'm asking you a question... Do you love
me?”
The question for this morning is - Do you love God? We as believers regularly hear the biblical
truth preached and taught that God loves you.
And what a powerful and awesome and comforting truth it is. But today we ask another question – Do you love God? Do you ever say - “I love you Lord, I love you God.” If not try it.
Practice saying it. If it feels a
little uncomfortable, start to say it in your prayers and devotions. Why?
Because we are talking about ultimate things.
What is the purpose of life?
What is the reason for living?
What is the meaning of existence?
A mother writes: “Our eight-year-old son was reading on the
couch one morning when he discovered a new word. "What does ponder mean?"
I wished for a dictionary. If you don't nail the odd impromptu definition
perfectly, you hear about it later—and regret it! So, I told him, "Ponder means you're
wondering or thinking about things.
Like, you might say, 'I'm pondering the meaning of life.'" Oh, no,
mistake, mentioning "the meaning of
life" is going to lead to one of those twisty, theological discussions,
where I have to finish by saying, "I don't know; it's a mystery!" But
to my utter amazement, my son was way ahead of me. "I know the meaning of
life," "It's to love God!"
The ultimate question for faith is what does God, the creator of the
universe, want from human beings? What
does God the Father want from us? What
does God want from you? Which leads us
to our passage from Deuteronomy. In
chapter 6 verse 4 we read the Shema.
Repeat after me – Shema! Shema
means “hear, listen.” Now you know some
Hebrew. Here’s a suggestion. Sometime when you can tell the person you're
talking to isn’t listening, just say: “Hey, Shema!” That will get their attention.
“Shema Israel, that is, listen
Israel, hear Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
strength.” Moses has gathered the
Israelites before him and addresses them: “This is the commandment that the
Lord Your God, charged me to teach you to observe in the land you are about to
cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children's
children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, so that your
days may be long.”
Moses was proclaiming the truth of monotheism, one God, rather than
polytheism. Monotheism, is the unique
and powerful divine truth which Judaism contributed to the world.
And God charged Moses to command the Israelites, whom God had freed
after 100's of years of Egyptian slavery, to love Him with every fiber of their
being. Was this command paramount? Absolutely, so much so, that Moses offers
some ni-monic devices: “Keep these words in your heart, tell them to
your children, talk about them wherever you are, bind them as a sign on your
hand, attach them as an emblem on your forehead, write them on the doorposts of
your house and your gates.”
Mezuzah is a Hebrew word which means “doorpost.” A Mezuzah is a small wooden, metal or glass
case which contains the Shema and which Jews place on the doorposts of their
homes. It's a constant reminder of God's
command.
Jesus reaffirms this central truth of Judaism and Christianity, that
there is one God whom God's people are to love fully, in the Gospels Matthew,
Mark and Luke, when he was asked: "Of
all the commandments from God which is the most important?" Now there were 613 commandments in the Law
and Jesus, not being wishy-washy, immediately quotes the Shema, but then adds
the word “mind” in addition to heart, soul and strength.
"The premier command is to love the Lord your God, with all your
heart with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind.” Jesus further connects this command from
Deuteronomy with another command from the book of Leviticus 19:18 saying: “There's a
second like it, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Your entire life should be an expression of
your love for God. Today, we are looking
at the first part, the command to love God.
Why is this command the preeminent command? An author writes: “The
more you love something, the more you become like it. For example, I have a friend that loves
tennis. He wears tennis stuff. He reads tennis magazines. He has tennis talk.
He has a racket, and his hair looks like a tennis ball. I have another friend that loves surfing. He
dresses with surf stuff, and he reads surf magazines. He talks surf talk. He's
even starting to smell like seaweed. Everything about him is starting to go
that way. But isn't it true whatever you love, you start moving that way?
That's why this is the greatest commandment of all. Because we become what we
love.”
Second, this is the premier command because God alone is worthy of our
ultimate loyalty, our ultimate allegiance, our ultimate love. Everyone and everything else is
penultimate. There are many people and
things we love in this life. There are
many things worth loving, family, friends, home, country, chocolate. But God says, “I am first,” God is first,
everything else and everyone else comes after God. God isn't saying - don't love other things in life. God is saying love Him before everything and
everyone else. If we don't, if we don't
love God first, there is a danger, the danger that we will make an idol of
other things or persons that we love. The
first commandment says: “You shall have
no other gods before me, you shall not make for yourself an idol.” We must keep things in proper perspective,
in cosmic balance. We must keep our
priorities straight.
Now though we are commanded to love God wholly, fully, completely, if
we are honest, we know we don’t. There
is a constant battle, an invariable competition, between putting God first and
putting other things first. Why, because
it’s not natural to our sinful human nature.
Our nature is to be self-centered rather than God-centered. It takes the Holy Spirit working in our
hearts through faith, to slowly transform us into persons who are growing into
loving God more fully. It is a process
of spiritual growth. Our ability to love
God fully is a work in progress. It
depends upon the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts through faith.
But I believe, isn’t believing in God enough? No.
People say: “I’m a Christian, I believe in God or I believe that God exists or I
believe there is a God.” Comedian
Louis C.K. writes: “I have a lot of
beliefs .… And I live by none of them. That's just the way I am. They're just my
beliefs. I just like believing them—I like that part. They're my little
"believies." They make me feel good about who I am. But if they get
in the way of a thing I want, I sure as heck just do what I want to do.” Moses and Jesus are raising the bar,
declaring that the faith God desires for us, is more than believing, it is
loving God with our whole being.
“God I love you, God we love you?” Do you tell God you love him? Oftentimes, we don't say it to people close
to us. Like the woman who says to her
husband: “Honey, you never tell me you
love me. He replies, “Dear, I told you
I loved you when we were married 30 years ago and until I take it back, it
still stands.”
When one becomes a Christian, when we confess Christ as Lord and
Savior, when the Holy Spirit enters our being, God gives us a new heart. This is the beginning of a spiritual
journey. A journey of a growing desire
to love God, to please God, to worship God, to obey God, to glorify God, to follow God's will in your
life, to lead a life that is good, just and righteous. It arises from a thankful heart, in response
to God's gift of sacrifical love and salvation.
How do we love God with all our heart and soul? It means desiring to know God and His will
more closely. It means sharing yourself
with God, asking for God's guidance and inspiration in your decisions. It means trusting God. It means praying to God and worshipping God
either alone in prayer or meditation or in worship with God’s family. It means
spending time and taking time for God.
It means opening up and allowing God to know you.
It means loving God with our emotions.
It means recognizing the importance of your interior life. It includes times of repenting and confessing
your sins and seeking God's forgiveness.
It is turning to God when your heart is broken. Loving God with your heart and soul means
seeking to please God, to honor and celebrate God and enjoy God. The psalmist says: “Praise the Lord oh my soul. I
will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God all my
life long.”
Loving God with your might, your strength, is to obey God physically,
yes, using your physical strength to glorify God. I have been exercising recently at World Gym
in PB. Wow, there are some rather large
intimidating dudes there, muscle bound guys and gals, who can lift enormous
weight. Their degree of physical
strength is amazing.
But this command also includes mental strength. And sometimes life requires more mental
strength than physical strength. It
means to learn to love God not only when your strong, but when your weak. It means to love and trust God not only when
life is good, but in times of disappointment, unrealized expectations, illness,
discouragement, set-backs or even in crisis.
The threat which we all must deal with is giving up in despair. For in
such times we need sheer spiritual and mental strength more than ever? Loving God with all our might, our strength
is critical.
Loving God with your mind means using your intellect in your
relationship with God. Faith is more
than feeling, it is also an intellectual journey, a quest. You are committed to learning, to studying
the scriptures and the Christian faith.
You ask questions. You seek answers.
You seek understanding about your theology, the beliefs, truths, and
tenents of your faith. You are not
afraid to wrestle with the moral dilemma's and tough questions about life in
relation to your faith in God. Loving
with your mind is striving to integrate your faith into your life. C.S.Lewis writes: “God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other
slackers. If you are thinking of
becoming a Christian, I warn you that you are embarking on something which is
going to take the whole of you, brains and all.”
Some contemporary critics think Christianity or any religion is for the
simple minded, a crutch for people who don’t think for themselves, for mentally
weak people who want to be spoon-fed religious nonsense. Loving God meants to use our minds to seek to
know the nature and will of God and the mind of Christ. God wants us to love him with our our
thinking, with seeking understanding, with our questions, and with reflecting
upon our experience in life in light of our faith.
What does God want from us? I
close with these words from C.S.Lewis. “When
I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my
earthly dearest better than I do now.
Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and
instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love
my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are
not suppressed but increased.” Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment