Sermon Series: Getting To Know Jesus 

The Essential Love Affair 

Mark 12:28-34

PSBC 9-8-02

In a nutshell: A true love relationship with God, on His terms, not yours…One that involves your heart, soul, mind and strength… then loves your neighbor as yourself, is more important than any other single factor in your life.

I. Introduction

A. Simple solution

This past Monday, we purchased a rotisserie attachment for our outdoor grill. Shirley and Al Farrell turned me on to pork loin sandwiches when I visited them in South Dakota a few weeks ago. And Shirley said I needed a rotisserie to cook pork loin like she did.

A rotisserie motor is electric, and has to be plugged in to an electrical outlet to run. Now, it's my nature to not always look where I'm going, so I'm prone to trip over things like wires and extension cords. Plus I like things to look neat. So, in order to keep my grill area uncluttered from extension cords, I decided to wire an electrical outlet onto one of the poles of my patio cover, right next to where the grill is located.

So, Monday morning, I carefully planned the project out, made a list of what I had, and what I needed, and went to Lowes to buy the necessary stuff. One of the things I purchased for the project were some lengths of ½ inch plastic electrical conduit (or pipe) in which to run the wires from the house to the place on the patio cover where I wanted the electrical box installed.

But when I got home with all my parts and pieces, I decided to take the project one step farther. I decided that in addition to the wires for the electrical outlet, I would also run the low voltage wires for my Malibu lights in the same conduit. It was a great idea! But there was just one problem-the ½ conduit I bought was not quite large enough to pull both sets of wires through. When I tried to pull both sets of wires through, they'd bind, then wouldn't budge. I could feel my blood pressure rising. What was I to do? I didn't want to go back to Lowes on Labor Day-the place was a zoo! I was tired and hot. And I didn't want to spend any more money on the project than I already had.

Then I remembered something a pool repairman had done two years ago when he replaced our pool light. Before he pulled the new wires through the conduit, he coated the wires with petroleum jelly, and the wires pulled through without a problem.

So, I went to our medicine cabinet, and got a jar or petroleum jelly, and thoroughly coated the wires . Guess what? It worked! I was so surprised. The wires pulled through the conduit very easily, without binding. And I finished the project without losing my temper! What a simple solution!

B. Simplicity of Love

But isn't that the way life often is? The most simple things often turn out to be the best.

Here's another simple thing. Love. It is so simple, yet so wonderful. If there ever was a topic which could qualify as the most thought about, written about, talked about, and sung about, it has to be love.

Love has been defined as "a many splendor thing," "a flower," "a rose," and something that "the world needs now." Love stories have not only been told, but written about in poetry, in quality works of literature, as well as in romance novels, stage plays, and screenplays. Everyone knows that love is something they need. All of us want to be loved. And all of us want to love.

So, humans have tried everything they can to find real love. -So, many in the '60's and '70's tried "free love," which wasn't free at all. It cost many not only their purity, but their self-respect. -Others searched for that "perfect person" to love us, only to find there was no such human being. -Some people try extra-marital "love" affairs, only to find it's a dead-end street, and ruins their lives.

But not all love affairs are bad. In fact, there is one love affair which is not only good for us, but it is altogether necessary. Jesus, Himself prescribed it! What I'm talking about is a love affair with God. This is the essential love affair for each of us.

II. The Question from the Religious Teacher

A. Set the scene

If you have your Bibles, I'm going to ask that you turn to Mark 12, where we'll begin reading at verse 28. As your turning there, let me set the stage…

The scene is the Temple area where theologians and scholars gathered to discuss the complexities and the requirements of the Jewish faith. The time is the middle of the week just before the Friday when Jesus would be crucified. A crowd had gathered around this rabbi who had come riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and who had scattered all the money changers and merchants who lined the temple courtyard. Now He was teaching people and answering their questions. And one of the professional religious teachers heard Jesus teaching and was quite impressed with what he heard. And that's where we'll pick up the narrative.

Mark 12:28 28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

Now, friends, unlike many of the questions Jesus was asked by the religious leaders, this one wasn't a trick question. It was an honest question that was posed by many of the Jewish teachers of the day. You see, the rabbis counted 613 individual statutes in the Law. 365 were negative and 248 were positive. And if you think that food manufacturers today coined the idea of "Lite", think again. Because these 613 laws were also divided into "Heavy" laws and "Lite" laws (50% less guilt)!

So, with all these laws, the religious leaders honestly wanted to know which ONE was most important. So, that's the question posed to Jesus. Look at His answer…

Mark 12:29-31 29 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

Now friends, understand something…a love affair is never one sided. In the love relationship that God wants to have with us, God is the one who did the initiating. He pursued us. He is the one who first loved us. And because God loves us, we are able to love Him back. The apostle John plainly states this in…

1 John 4:19 19 We love because he first loved us.

B. The Three Parts Are Really One

Now, before we get into what is necessary for us to enter into a love affair with God, I want you to notice some word forms-specifically the use of plural and singular nouns in verses 29-31. Because Jesus combined three significant law statements, from three different parts of the Old Testament, and made them into one.

1. The first one was the "Shema". Shema means, HEAR. It speaks of God's oneness. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." The people of Israel commonly repeated these words, to remind them that their worship of God was a monotheistic religion, as contrasted to the many gods of the Canaanites or the Romans.

2. Second, is the Mezuzah. The Mezuzah is represented by a little scroll you may have seen nailed to the door post of a Jewish person's home. The Mezuzah is found in Deuteronomy 4:4-9. It is put on the doorpost in order to remind the people of the home to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind and strength…in their going out and their coming in-in other words, in all the parts of their life.

3. Finally, Jesus says to, "Love your neighbor as yourself." This is a quote from…

Leviticus 19:18 18 "'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

Now, here's what I want you to see in the word forms. Instead of saying that these were three important commandments, therefore making it possible to separate them, Jesus said, "There is no commandment (singular) greater than these (plural)." In other words, the three are combined into one. And if they are one, they cannot be separated. That means there are no options to follow one part and not the others.

Because of how Jesus grammatically connected them, all three form one commandment. And it's this commandment that forms the groundwork for the essential love affair with God. Loving God involves five distinct parts that move in a progressive order. Let's look at those parts individually.

III. The Progression of the Love Affair

A. Heart = Will

First, we're told to love Lord God with all our heart. In the Bible, the term heart almost always refers to the "will" of a person.

What Jesus is saying, is that in order for you to have a love affair with God, it first requires an act of your will. In other words, a decision. An intellectual exercise where your thought process decides to zero in on God-He becomes the focus of your thoughts, the number one priority of your life, and the object of your attention.

So, how do you do this? Well, how do you build a relationship with anyone that leads to love? It starts by spending time with that person, finding out things about that person, by listening to that person. It's the same with God. Loving God with all our hearts requires spending time with Him, finding out things about Him, and by listening to Him. I mean really listening!

Illustration: Two men were talking one day. One of them said, "My wife talks to herself a lot." His friend answered, "Mine does too, but she doesn't know it. She thinks I'm listening."

Someone else said, "It's impossible for a worthwhile thought to enter your mind through an open mouth."

Listening is probably the most vital spiritual discipline when it comes to focusing our wills.. Sunday worship service, Flock groups, Adult Enrichment classes, and personal study in God's Word are all forums where you can decide to listen to God. And if in those venues you are truly trying to listen to Him, you have begun the love affair. You started by loving Him with all your heart.

B. Soul = the emotions

After you give God your heart, He wants your soul. The soul in the Bible usually refers to your emotions. And when you think about it, this is a natural progression.

Illustration: When my dad came to visit us in Scottsdale, about a year or so after my mom died, we set him up on a blind date with my secretary at the church. They went out to lunch together. Their lunch hour became three hours long. And afterwards, when my dad came back to our house, Diane said he kept pacing the floor of our family room, and asking the question, "Do you think she liked me?" What was happening? His emotions were kicking in.

And that's the way God wants us to love Him. After spending time with Him, and discovering His great love for you-realizing that if you were the only human being alive on the earth, He would have died to purchase your salvation, that has to do something to your insides. That has to get your juices flowing! Emotionally, when you realize how much God loves you, you can't help but fall in love with Him, because of how much He loves you.

C. Mind = What you think about

After deciding to love God and listen to Him, after your emotions kick in, then the object of your love becomes what you think about all the time. That's what loving Him with all your mind means.

Those of you who are married, or are in a relationship with another person right now, I want you to think about those first days, weeks, and months when you first fell in love with that person. I can guarantee you that you think or thought about that person all the time. Their hair, their smile, their touch, their words. When you're really in love, all you can think about is the object of your love.

Illustration: Many years ago in a small kingdom in Europe, a king was out with some people hunting on a day. They came upon a crowd of people gathered along a river's edge. When they looked, they saw a man caught in the rapids, headed toward a waterfall, and certain death. Everyone recognized the man as a notorious criminal. Most of the people on the rivers bank were laughing at the man's plight, and were quite happy that justice was being done.

But much to their surprise, the king ran to the edge of the river bank and dove into the water, fighting the rapids and the current. He swam to the man and pushed him ashore. But the king was so overcome by exhaustion from fighting the river's current that he couldn't swim anymore and the river carried him over the falls and ended his life.

After witnessing the horrible scene, the crowd marched over to the criminal who was lying on the bank, catching his breath from the ordeal he'd just been through. And several in the crowd spoke angrily at him. They said, "You'd better be different now because you are the man that the king died for."

The legend goes that the man was indeed affected by king's act of love and courage. So much so, that he changed his life. He became a model citizen. Everywhere he went the people would say, "You are the one the king died for." So the thought never left his mind.

Listen to me, my friends, "You are the one the King died for." Don't ever forget it! Let your mind dwell it! In fact, let it dwell on that fact, rather than what game show is on TV, or who is with whom in the latest episode of Friends, or what the latest video is on MTV, or whose getting kicked off the island this week!

D. Strength = the whole person

So, I hope you're catching on to the progression. Loving God is not merely an emotional thing. On the other hand, it's not just filling your head with more and more facts about God. You first decide to love. Then you let your emotions kick in. Then you let your mind dwell on God's love for you…then you're ready for the fourth part-loving God with all your strength.

Strength in the Bible talks about your actions. I could spend all day on this, but let me give you two examples of how your actions get involved in loving God.

1. Prayer

Let's consider prayer, first of all. And let me start by asking you a question. When you pray, how do you pray? I mean, do you begin with a long grocery list of things you want? If it is, then you're not loving God with all your strength. Loving God with all our strength, when we pray, means we focus on God first-who He is, what His power is like, asking Him what He wants and for His will, then ask things on our list.

2. Language

Another area where strength is involved in loving God is our language. Loving God with all our strength means we don't take God's name in vain-that is, use it uselessly. Using God's name in such a way where it is merely used to punctuate a sentence, or convey the forcefulness in our conversation, doesn't show God very much respect and love. Flippantly using God's name is an action that doesn't honor Him. If we really love Him, we will look for ways to honor His name, not dishonor it.

The bottom line to loving God will all our strength is that we examine everything we do, and put it under the microscope of honesty, and ask, "Does this honor God? Does this show that I love God?" That's loving him with all our strength.

E. Neighbor as ourselves

Now, I want you to look again at verse 31…

Mark 12:31 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

Now, here's where the progression of thoughts, emotions and actions in our love affair with God starts to become very important. You see, the final part to loving God is "loving our neighbor as ourselves".

It is a fact, that when you love someone, the things that are important to that person take on a great importance for you.

Illustration: My wife loves jewelry-especially gold and diamonds. Duh! When I asked her what she wanted for our 29th anniversary at the beginning of this summer, Diane said she wanted a gold ring with "baguettes" all the way around. Now, friends, until she told me baguettes were a form of small diamond, I thought a baguette was a long loaf of French bread.

But because I love Diane with all of my will, all my emotions, she fills my thoughts on a constant basis, and she figures into many of my actions during the course of a day (heart, soul, mind and strength), baguettes became something of considerable importance to me. I did research on them, I read about them, I searched the internet for them, and I talked with local jewelry dealers and visited their shops, both with her and without her. And eventually I bought her the ring she wanted. Why? Because I love her! Because I love her, what was important to her became important to me.

Now, if we are really loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength…then it follows that what is important to Him will become important to us. Right? So, what's important to God? Very simple…PEOPLE!

People matter to God so much, that He …humbled Himself, came to earth as a man-the Creator became the creation. …He lived among us. …Taught us about how to have a relationship with Him that will last forever. …He redeemed us, by paying the debt that was owed because of our individual sin. …He conquered death. …And He gave the third person of the Trinity to us to comfort and guide us. God did all that, because He loves people. People-all people-matter to God. So if we love God, people will matter to us as well.

Do you see the progression. You must first love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, then as a by-product of your love for God, you must love people. It's a decision. It doesn't happen by osmosis. One doesn't guarantee the other. But to fulfill the Great Commandment and bear fruit as we talked about last week, then you must show your love for God by loving what he loves-people.

Now, let's get very practical. I purposefully left the posters from our 100 Days of Prayer, Promise and Power up around the worship center today. Because I want to illustrate something. I've had about a dozen of you express concern to me about being 14% behind last years summer giving. I agree, it is a concern. -But I've not had one person at all ask me how we intend to follow-up on any of the 14 people who accepted Christ during the past 100 days. -I've had just three people come to me and say they'd begin praying about reaching out to the Hispanic community. -I don't think Cathy has had anyone come up to her since her children were dedicated and asked, what can I do to support you. -And I've had no one ask to teach the youth who were baptized.

Somewhere along the way we got our priorities flip-flopped. The tool-money-has become more important than the objectives of God-people! And I have to ask, "Do we really love God?" Because if we did, then what is most important to God would be most important to us. And that's what we would be talking about!

And friends, lest you think you can do one without the other, look at the sentence structure of verse 31 again. It says, "There is no commandment (singular) greater than these. (plural)" In other words, as I said before, you can't separate any of these from the whole. If you think you can love God and not love your neighbor, you are just kidding yourself, and disappointing God.

V. Conclusion

Friends, the concept of having a love affair with God-in every area of the Great Commandment-is foundational to everything else in your Christian life. If this isn't right, you will be a dysfunctional Christian, helping the church you attend to be dysfunctional as well. On the front of your copies of This Week is a quoted from Henry Blackaby that I want you to think about…

"Everything in your Christian Life, everything about knowing Him and experiencing Him, everything about knowing His will depends on the quality of your love relationship to God. If that's not right, nothing in your life will be right."

Illustration: Several years ago, when Steven Jobs, the founder of Apple Computers was trying to recruit John Scully, who was then the President of Pepsi-Cola to become the president of Apple, Jobs issued a stinging challenge to Scully. He asked, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?"

A true love relationship with God, on His terms, not yours…One that involves your heart, soul, mind and strength… then loves your neighbor as yourself, is more important than any other single factor in your life. Because that essential love affair is at the heart of why God has left you hear on this earth. Anything else is like selling sugared water.

Amen.