August 20, 2023 / The Greatest Love

Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast. How do we know where to find answers to the toughest

questions in life? While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search

and how do we discover this truth? Today, in this teaching podcast, John Meador, lead

pastor of Cross City Church, takes a specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth

for the life we're searching for. Thanks so much for being with us today. If you have

your Bibles, please take them and turn to the Gospel of Matthew today. The Gospel of

Matthew chapter 22 today, a message I'm calling the greatest love. This new series, Out of

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

the Shallow, has to do with moving out of the shallow end of relationships and getting

into the deeper parts of what it means to have great relationships with God and great

relationships with each other. Please stand with me as we read what I consider one of

the greatest passages in the New Testament, Matthew chapter 22. It might be one of the

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

more popular verses that we know of. Probably everybody in the room has at least heard a

message on this or has studied this text. Many of you have this memorized by heart and

it's a great text, but I don't know that we always dig deeply enough in a text to find

out all the things we need to see and today we're going to attempt to do that in Matthew

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

chapter 22, beginning in verse 35. If you know the context, you know that the lawyers

are asking Jesus a question, attempting to entrap him. The Sadducees have asked Jesus

questions, the Pharisees have asked him questions, now the lawyers are getting in on the conversation

and of course they believe that they're going to trip Jesus up. They're trying to falsely

accuse him of breaking the law or in some way disregarding the law and so they ask him

the question about the greatest command of the greatest law. It says this in verse 35.

It says, one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question testing him. Teacher, what is the

great commandment in the law? And he said, you shall love the Lord your God with all

of your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost

commandment. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two

commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. Now we'll stop there, we'll look

at more in just a few moments. Would you bow with me today and ask the Holy Spirit just

to illuminate this in each of our hearts. Father today, what a privilege to take this

text, these words that Jesus shared, harkening all the way back to the Old Testament, to

answer a tough question that was meant to entrap him and yet giving us the wisdom and

the truth that we today hold so tightly today, illuminate this for us so that we might see

what it means, what Jesus intends it to mean for us. Lord, we ask this in Jesus' name

and all God's people said, Amen. Please be seated if you would.

You know when I think of out of the shallow, when I think of moving out of the shallow

end of the pool into the deep end of the pool, or out of the shallow of relationships into

the deep end of relationships, I think about growing up. I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma,

and in that small town there was one pool that I knew of in all of the town of about

3,000 people. There weren't many homes with pools, none that I knew of. None of my friends

had one. No one had one that anybody knew. But there was a city pool, and this city pool

was rather large. It was on the top of a hill called Red Hill, and everybody in terms of

kids went there in the summer. And I remember being 8 or 9, 10 years old, and just learning

how to swim in the shallow end of the pool, and being a little bit frightened about the

deep end of the pool. And this was one of those situations where parents come and drop

you off, hope you survive, but they're leaving and going someplace else all day long while

you're in the pool. And as I learned to get more confident in the shallow end of the pool,

then one day I got up, my boldness, my confidence, I got up my courage, and I went to the deep

end of the pool. And I remember jumping off the low board into 12 feet deep of water.

And that was intimidating. I was obsessed with the idea of swimming in the deep end

of the pool, but I was also terrified to swim in the deep end of the pool. Now I knew how

to swim. It wasn't that I couldn't swim. It was that this was over my head. This was

out of my comfort zone. Plus there was that dark thing in the water at the base of the

pool that we know as the drain, and it looked like a shark to me when I was on the driving

board. And while the water moved back and forth, it also looked like an octopus. So

I wasn't sure what I was getting into, but I knew people had survived before. So I dove

in with all the fear that I had in my heart, and I managed to get through the first time,

and then the second time, and for for long, I was swimming in the deep end of the pool

with regularity and safe. Obviously I survived. You know how the story ends. I'm still here

today. Unfortunately, some of us never get into the deep end of the pool with relationships.

We stay in the shallow side where our feet can touch the bottom. We stay in the side

that we can walk away if we need to walk away because we're not really sure what it means

to get in over our heads when it comes to the kinds of relationships that God calls

us to. We're not even sure we can do the kind of relationships that marriage calls us to,

or that community calls us to, or that friendship calls us to. My challenge to you over these

next six weeks is get out of the shadow and into the deep of relationships, and we're

starting with our relationship with God. You know, your relationship with God is going

to be something that really flavors everything else that you do, and what Jesus gave us that

day is one of the most important verses we could possibly have. I want to challenge you

to invest more. I want to challenge you to explore more of what it means to have great

relationships beginning with a relationship with God. Now you've heard me say this over

and over if you've been around for a while. You hear me quote a guy named Oscar Thompson

all the time. Oscar was the evangelism professor at Southwestern Seminary back when I was there.

He was the interim pastor at this church at one point, and other churches that I'm aware

of. Wherever Oscar went, he made this statement. He's known for making this statement. For

standing up in front of people and saying, the greatest word in the English language

is the word relationships. Now he told me that when I was a student at Southwestern,

and he said, it'll be one of the most important things I ever say to you. And I wasn't impressed

with what he said at first, but now 40 years later I'm quoting him from that classroom

and realized the depth of that statement. The most important word in the English language

is the word relationships. Everything good in your life comes through relationships.

Everything bad in your life comes through relationships. Everything you will ever have

with God comes through a relationship with God. And that's what we want to focus on this

morning, the importance of relationships. And that brings us to Matthew chapter 22 where

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your

mind. And the second command is like unto that, that you love your neighbor as yourself.

And again, this conversation comes about because of an attempt to entrap Jesus by the Sadducees,

the Pharisees, and at this point the lawyer who came to him and asked the question. And

they were hoping that Jesus would pick one of those 10 commandments that we're all so

familiar with. And by picking one, it would be the wrong one and they would argue the

fact that he wouldn't be really a representative from God because he was somehow denying the

10 commandments as a whole. And yet what Jesus said is so profound that it's a statement

we still talk about today as the signature statement on love and relationships. In fact,

not only did Jesus say that and not only did they go silent at that moment, he asked them

another question which they could not answer. And it's rather humane for me to read the

very last verse of chapter 22. And if you want to look at your Bible, it says this in

Matthew chapter 22 verse 46, no one was able to answer him a word, nor did anyone dare

Matthew 22:46

from that day on to ask him another question. That's how profound Jesus' answer was. So

profound that everyone that had any desire to entrap him all of a sudden went silent,

ghosted, nothing else to say to this man because he's ahead of us on everything. And I would

say to you today, one of the great indications of the sovereignty of God and the idea that

Jesus is fully God and fully man is this answer to this question that we still see as so profound.

He's always fully on the throne. He's always fully sovereign and he shows us here. But

he also gives us some great insight into relationships from this passage. So I want to give you three

truths today that this text helps us discover from how it was given, when it was given first

and actually what it says, which will be the third point that I give you, the third truth.

The first truth has to do with background and context and that is that we were created

for love. I want you to write that point down and I want you to look with me at the text

itself and I want you to recall that whenever you see all caps in the Bible, it is a quotation

in the New Testament of an Old Testament passage and that's what you find in Matthew 22. Jesus

literally in this question and his answer quoted the Old Testament in Deuteronomy chapter

Deuteronomy 6:4

6 verse 4. We'll talk about that in just a few moments. But I want you to see that his

answer has a context of thousands of years before that moment where the question was

asked. And here's what he says, it's the Shema, we'll look at that in a moment, but

he says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and

with all your mind. And from the beginning, that is a phrase and a word that meant much

to God's people. And I want you to take you back all the way back to the beginning to

the fact that you were actually created to have this kind of relationship with God and

we're not always aware of it. We're created to have love in our life. We're created to

be able to fellowship with God in an amazing and a supernatural way. Now we're going to

be using the word love over the next few weeks a lot. And so as we use the word love, please

keep in mind in New Testament texts, there are four different words for love. And I'll

explain those four very, very quickly. We won't spend time on many of them, but we'll

spend time on the last one. The first word I'll introduce to you is the word eros, which

is erotic love. It basically is erotic love or sexual love. It's the love of passion.

It's a passion that seizes and absorbs itself in the mind and emotional involvement based

on body chemistry. That's what the word eros really stands for. And it's the love of

passion that seizes and absorbs itself in the mind and emotional involvement based on

body chemistry. That's what the word eros really stands for, what it means. And you'll

find this in various places in scripture. The second Greek word is the word phileo.

Phileo is brotherly love. It's friendship based on commonality. It's the kind of love

you have with a buddy that you have common interests with. If you've got someone that

loves the Dallas Cowboys, well, good luck to both of you, but you're in it together.

If you've got your dog lovers or your cat lovers, it's amazing what happens when you

go to a dog park and you have a dog and all of a sudden all these buddies show up. I'm

not talking about the other dogs. I'm talking about the other dog owners. And you have phileo

love. You care about them on the basis of commonality. It has appreciation involved.

It has liking something involved. That is what brotherly love is all about. It doesn't

weather all the storms, but nonetheless it's pretty good while it lasts. Then there's

more, uh, storgay love. And that's family love. That's the natural affection you have

for a spouse or for a biological family member. It's also mutual obligation that we love

each other because we've committed ourselves to each other. It's kind of a natural movement

of the soul to a spouse or to a child. And it's not used often in scripture, but it's

basically family love. And then there's this word that we all know something about because

it's the most important word. It's the word Jesus actually used here in Matthew chapter

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

22. And I think you probably know what it is, don't you? It's agape love. Somebody say

agape. All right. We have three of you say that. All right. Let's all say it. Agape.

Agape is loving unconditionally. It's loving with favor and goodwill. It's the intent to

give the best that a person possibly could need. You give your best to meet that need.

It's loving someone even if they are unresponsive, unkind, even if they are unlovable and unworthy.

And we use the word unconditional more than any other word. It's unconditional love. It's

really powerful love. And it really is originating in God's own loving nature. There's three

words that describe part of the character of God in the Bible. And those three words

are God is love. Say those three words with me. God is love. Now that's the kind of love

Jesus is talking about when he uses the word agape. God's character is that of unconditional

love. Now Jesus defined agape as the highest, most important love on the planet. That's

what this verse essentially does. The greatest priority in your life according to Jesus,

the greatest command in the law and the prophets is for you to love God with your whole heart

and then for you to love others out of that vertical love that you have for the Lord Jesus

Christ. It also involves you being loved by God because God is love. His unconditional

love for you exists and never ceases. That's a pretty good feeling right there. To know

I am unconditionally loved by God tells me I will always be in his favor. Even when I

do something wrong, God still loves me enough, maybe sometimes to discipline me, certainly

always to steer me back on the right path. But my love and relationship with God and

his love for me is not based on my perfection. Aren't you glad that your relationship with

God is not based on your perfection? We are all in trouble if it is based on our perfection.

But the word agape, God is love, is an incredible part of what healthy relationships are. In

fact, God created us this way and that's why this phrase that we call the Shema that

is found in Deuteronomy chapter 6 that Jesus quoted in Matthew chapter 22 goes all the

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention Matthew 22 · chapter mention

way back to the beginning because we were created exactly in our DNA to need and to

have this love. Go back to the creation account. Genesis chapter 1 verse 26 is one of those

Genesis 1:26

great verses that kind of capsulizes that. It says, then God said let us make men in

our image according to our likeness. Now one of the parts of the details of what God says

in the beginning, and we walked through Genesis earlier this year and had a great time walking

through it, was that God created us to have a fellowship and have a relationship with

him. We are created in his image so that we might know him and might know his character

and be able to understand him and know him by way of his revelation. Now get this picture.

God created the first man, the first woman and began to relate to them, began to talk

to them. He walked with them in the garden. He gave them responsibilities to do. He warned

them about things that they should avoid doing. I mean this is an intimate relationship between

God and the first man and the first woman. And it gives us a pattern for our own DNA,

our own design. You need fellowship with God and God has created you for this fellowship

and for this love. That's why you need to know about it because God has created you

for this kind of love. So look at our loving, our relating God and learn from that. He formed

everything for us before he created us and put us in it. He made us in his image. He

was talking to us. And it's expressed even further in the New Testament that he wants

a relationship with us. John 3.16. I mean if that's not a famous one, which one is?

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in

him should not perish but have eternal life. The love of God is something that every single

one of us need and we're created for that love. And God designed it and created it that

way so that we would have that love. Did you know that when you are born, you're born into

a biological family, hopefully among people that will love you. I've got a brand new grand

baby. Yeah you can say amen. I didn't work hard for it but I sure am glad to have it.

This little girl. And of course I've got six kids. Some of you know from all the stories

I tell about my family, six kids, and this is our first grandchild. But it's amazing,

it's amazing how all six of these adult kids are just focused on this little baby girl.

She was born into a biological family that's going to be loving her and holding her and

challenging her and everything else her whole life. You are born into a biological family

because of this need for love, this need for relationships. God has set this up for you.

You are born again into a spiritual family where you have brothers and sisters in Jesus

Christ. You have spiritual teachers you sometimes call father but you have a heavenly father

who is God. We need this love. We're created for this love. God has brought us on this

earth for this love. And when you come to faith in Jesus Christ, the Bible says you

were adopted, you are loved, you are given inheritance, you're co-heirs with Jesus Christ

the son, you have a future home, you're no longer slaves but you're children of God.

And that part of love is all about the receiving end of the agape love that is exemplified

by God is love. You're created for it. It's in your DNA. It's why God has you here. It's

how I love you. It's pretty powerful. I remember a few years ago we baptized a young woman

who wanted to help us get her message out. She was raised in Islam and was a great student

of world religion. She had read the Quran and then she had read the Bible through a

faithful witness of a man that later became her husband. She said, you know I came to

faith in Jesus because I read the Quran and could find no place where Allah left me. But

many places where I was obligated to love and obey him. And then I read the Bible. And

as I read the Bible I realized that many places about love in the Bible were about God loving

me and then the opportunity just to respond to that love. And she said when I saw that,

that's the God I knew I needed to worship and when I saw his son Jesus I followed him

by putting my faith and trust in him. What an incredible testimony. So you are created

for love. That's in your DNA. You are made for love. That's truth number one. Number

two, the scripture also tells us we can learn to love. We can learn to love. So I want you

to go to the text now. We look kind of behind the text of the timing of where this verse

was first given back in the Shema, back in the Old Testament, near creation time. And

now we are going to look at the words themselves. It says you shall love the Lord your God.

Notice the phrasing of that. You shall love the Lord your God. And then again in that

second command, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is a fact and there is

a future tense here. First of all, this is what you ought to be doing. Secondly, this

is something you are going to learn to do in the days ahead. This is something you must

learn to do. It is a command but it has a future sense to it. So the idea is God commands

you to do something. And I know this from experience and you do too from the scripture

as well. God never commands us to do something that he doesn't help us do. If God tells you

to do something, if he gives you command to love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, with all your mind, then he is going to help you do that. Nevertheless,

so many of us don't do this. We don't love. We haven't learned to love. Now let me take

just a couple of minutes to give you some reasons why I believe that is true. You may

be here today saying I don't understand why I can't love others unconditionally. I don't

understand why I don't seem to have that unconditional love from God that we are talking about today.

Let me just give you two or three things. First of all, some have been betrayed or hurt

or wronged and haven't healed and we can't love because we are still wounded or hurt.

I think that is common today. I think it has always been common. We struggle to trust because

of some distrust created in the past by somebody in our lives. Or maybe we misunderstood what

God was doing and so therefore we are a little concerned about God loving us and his reputation

because we don't understand. God would never do anything that would cause you to distrust

him, but the bottom line on it is he is trustworthy, but sometimes we don't understand that. So

there are some who have been betrayed, hurt or wronged and they haven't healed and so

they struggle to have loving relationships. It is just a fact. Secondly, some may love

ourselves and our ways too much to give life. If you are so full of loving yourself, is

my microphone going out? Alright. It sounded just fine to me. I don't know.

Some may love ourselves so much in our ways too much to give love to God, to give love

to others. When we are focused on ourselves there is no way that we are really going to

be able to get our eyes off ourselves and love anybody else especially with the kind

of agape love that we are called to. But here is the big point about those who struggle.

Some have not experienced unconditional love and so therefore can't give unconditional

love. That is what really trips so many people up. Until you have learned what it means to

be loved in this way, until you have understood what it means to know God and his love for

you, you are going to struggle to give that unconditional love to anybody else. You see

the source of unconditional love and that well full of unconditional love comes from

God himself. You have to learn it. It is something you can actually learn and grow in if you

understand how you get it and receive it. There is a great verse in 1 Thessalonians

1 Thessalonians 4:9

chapter 4 verse 9. I hope that you will grasp that verse and kind of hold on to it because

there is so much in it. It says, Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need

for anyone to write to you. Then Paul says to the church at Thessalonica, For you yourselves

are taught by God to love one another. Now the first love in that first line there is

brotherly love, love of the brethren, phileo. But that last love, you have been taught by

God to love one another is agape love. In other words, you not only have experienced

agape love from God the Father but you can also have that brotherly love with everyone

else because God has taught you how to love one another. And I have come to the conclusion

in my own life that you can love others only to the degree that you know your Father's

love for you. You may not fully comprehend it but for you to acknowledge that God loves

you in an unconditional way is the beginning steps for you to be able to love others like

he loves you. I remember the woman who I was in a counseling situation with along with

another lady in our church and this other lady and myself were counseling this third

person, this woman who had gone through such a horrendous background, such a hard time

in her life that she could not fathom that God would love her because of all she had

done and experienced. I mean we spoke with her for an hour or more talking about the

love of God and the expressed love of Jesus Christ, the demonstration of Jesus dying on

the cross on and on. This woman would not even acknowledge that God loved her. We just

made it our point through prayer and encouragement, reading the scripture and everything else

to help her come to the place of believing that God loved her. And finally about an hour

into that conversation something just went on in terms of a light bulb in her mind and

heart and she realized, okay, if what you say is true that changes everything about

my life and we said that's the point and she said, okay, I will acknowledge, I will

agree, God loves me. God loves me in spite of the fact that I can't love myself. God

loves me and sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for me. That was a moment of her

salvation and her life began to change immediately as a result of knowing the unconditional love

of God for her. That same thing is true for you. That's true. That's why we want everybody

to know the gospel of Jesus. We want everybody to come to faith in Jesus. We want everybody

to experience the unconditional love of God through Jesus Christ because there's nothing

like it. Nothing will change your life like that will change your life. Learning to love

changes your life and learning to know God's love for you changes the way you love. So

first of all, we are created for life. Secondly, we can learn to love. Alright, I want you

to notice thirdly now, I've got this secret system where they tell me my mic is good now

so we're all good again. Truth number three, we can actively love. We can actively love.

I want you to notice what Jesus said in verse four after saying the things we've already

read and considered. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your

soul, with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now then in verse four,

Jesus says something that we don't often take time to consider. He says, on these two commandments

depend the whole law and the prophets. I'm sure that this line is what silenced the lawyers

and the Pharisees and the Sadducees. But Jesus says something profound for us in this verse

that helps us know how to practically love God. Loving God more than the feeling, loving

God more than the emotion, loving God more than some confessional statement that we make

about how we love God. On these two commandments, depend the whole law and the prophets. When

you dig into the context of Deuteronomy chapter six, what you're going to find is that this

statement Jesus makes is a statement that follows the recording and the giving of the

Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy. So you have Ten Commandments and then you have what's

called the Shema. Now the Shema is the statement that the Jewish people have been reading for

thousands of years before Christ came. Here over Israel the Lord our God is one God, they

said, harkening back to his creative power and the fact that he was just one God. There

were no other gods but him. And then Jesus' statement was in chapter six, verse four of

Deuteronomy, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,

and with all your mind. So we're taking this context all the way back to Deuteronomy chapter

six and then Jesus said on these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. It's

always been about this, Jesus said, all of it. So the Shema, Deuteronomy chapter six,

is a liturgical prayer that Jewish people quote even today. And that liturgical prayer

is a memory of the fact that God created heavens and the earth and that they were called to

know him and love him. I was doing some background research to the Shema and read a rabbinical

scholar who said this about that statement Jesus made, which was a quote of Deuteronomy

chapter six, the Shema. He said, this describes a love that is unreserved, all demanding,

at all times, in all places, in all circumstances. Nothing is excluded. Thoughts are to be focused,

thoughts are to be spoken, deeds are to be done. He goes on and says it's an immense

meaning. It has immense meaning and emotion for the Jewish people for these thousands

of years. So imagine if you would, Jesus making this statement which carries all that emotion,

all that weight for all the people that would look at it and say that's the way it's always

been. It's always been based on love and still true it's based on love. We've got this big

statement called the Shema. By the way, rabbis still do this twice a day, morning and evening.

If you've ever been on an airplane going to Israel, you know they stand there with their

phylacteries in their boxes and in that box is a little scroll with the Shema written

on it and they do this over and over in a very legalistic way to remind them of God's

place in their life. But Jesus gives the heart and the soul behind all this. This is how

you love God. Remember He created this world, placed you in it and loves you with an everlasting

love so you love Him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. That's

what's behind this. It's a pledge of your life to Him. I mean Creator God puts you here.

Creator God has a purpose for you. Creator God relates to you. He speaks to you. He loves

you with an everlasting love. Your pledge to Him is I will love you with my whole heart,

my mind, my strength. So the Shema follows immediately the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy

and the first four of the Ten Commandments speak to our response to God. So I'm going

to take a moment and just make application to the first four commandments there that

Jesus referenced back to when He gave this statement. By the way, in a practical sense,

loving God wholeheartedly is more than affection. Affection says I love you because there's

something lovable about you. Affection says you've done me well so I'm going to love

you well. But devotion goes beyond affection. Devotion says I love you beyond all that.

I'm committed to what you value. That's basically a Godly love in the sense of our love for

God. We love Him and we want to value what He values. Let me give you those first four

commands very quickly. As you write them down you'll see some practical application. The

first commandment in the Ten Commandments, the first one is have no other gods before

me. Practically speaking that means that we are to love God exclusively. If I'm going

to love God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my might and all my strength,

I'm going to love Him exclusively. No other being, no other value, no other thing can

take the place of God on the throne of my heart if I'm going to love Him with my whole

heart. Love Him exclusively. There should be no competition for the title of God in

your life. When you consider decisions that you need to make, when you consider thoughts

that you need to think, no one and nothing needs to take precedence over God who loves

you with this unconditional love. It means God owns the exclusive title of God and Lord

and Master and Heavenly Father in your life. There's no one else but God. Someone say it

with me. There's no one else but God. No one else but God in your life. Loving Him completely

means that. The second command is that there should be no idol or likeness of God, no graven

image as we often say it. That basically means love God personally. Exclusively and then

personally. What do you mean? Well, the reason that God did not want a graven image made,

the reason He didn't want carved images made is because it would limit what a person thought

about God based on what could be made with human hands. God is invisible. You can't see

Him. In fact, no one can see God and live at this moment. Only after you die will you

see Jesus face to face and you'll be in the presence of God and all that will be incredibly

powerful but you can't see God and live right now. He's invisible. He's everywhere at once

in the world. He's omnipresent. He's all powerful. All those amazing words but you know Him by

His character and by His words and by His actions. And that's how He wants you to know

Him personally through what He said, through what He's done, through what His character

is like. He wants you to have that personal relationship with Him that would be minimized

if you have some little idol that you carry around in your pocket to remind you of God.

You've got to be reminded about God by what you read, by what you see, by your answered

prayer, by how God moves in your life. That's how you need to be reminded about God. Also,

this commandment also helps us know we don't need to make God after our own image as some

people are prone to do today. They say, well, my God would only do this or my God would

only do that. Listen, there is only one God and He acts as He will independent of your

desire. So we love Him personally as well as we love Him exclusively. Tom LeVorn said,

nothing should take the place of the personal presence of the invisible God in your life.

Nothing should take place of that. The third command is don't take His name in vain. And

by that I apply it this way. Love God honorably. Love God honorably. You know, the Bible contains

so many different names for God and all those names reveal His character in so many different

ways. At various times in the past we've walked through the Hebrew compound names for God

and you remember Jehovah Rafa, Jehovah Nisi, Jehovah Sitch Canoe. Some of those names are

somewhat familiar to you because we take those Hebrew names and we break them down in order

to say, oh, this is another part of the personality and the character of God. But here in the

Ten Commandments it's commanded that we not take His name in vain. In other words, we

honor His name in every way. His name reflects His nature. We don't ever want to somehow

dishonor the nature and the character of God. We hold it in highest esteem. That's one way

we can love God. The Bible says in Psalm 8 verse 1, oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is

Psalms 8:1

Your name in all the earth. We're constantly called on to elevate the name of Jesus. You're

splendor is above the heavens, the scripture says. Jesus in the Lord's prayer said it like

this, hallowed be Your name. May Your name be hallowed in the earth. I'm loving God well

when I give reverence and honor to His name in my words and speech and when I do not carelessly

use His name about meaningless things. Don't bring God's name up if you're not worshiping

Him. If you're not talking about a testimony of what He's done in your life, don't bring

His name up like that. Honor His name. Give reverence to His name. It wouldn't go well

for me if I used my wife's name in vain. It wouldn't go well with you if you used your

closest friend's name in vain. Why do we think that this is different? It's even more important.

Honor Him with your words about His name. Then finally, the fourth commandment is to

observe the Sabbath, which essentially means to love God by being with Him. This is, I

think, the most intriguing invitation we can get. The living God, the creator of all the

universe wants to spend time with you. Now you remember the Sabbath was that seventh

day where God rested. Six days He created, then seventh day He rested. Christians celebrate

that on the first day of the week because it's resurrection day. We call it the Lord's

Day and we set aside time to be with God, to worship Him. One of the greatest ways we

can love Him is to give Him time, spend time in His presence. It's such a big deal. The

principle is that spending time with God is one of the ways we love Him with all of our

heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our mind. Listen to me. God doesn't need

our gifts. He doesn't need our financial gifts. He doesn't need us to serve Him even though

we have the privilege of doing all those things, but God wants us to be with Him. Now this

is a John Metter statement and I didn't find it in the Bible, so don't quote me saying

it came from the Bible, but God's love language might be quality time, the thing we struggle

most to give Him. And instead of saying it's hard for me to give time to God, it should

be more like it's amazing that God the universe wants me to spend time with Him. It's amazing

that He wants to reveal Himself. It's amazing that He wants me to learn from Him. It's amazing

that He calls me to Himself. So you love God well when you create margin in your life to

do that very thing and that's what Jesus did. When I look for how Jesus loved the Father,

I find these verses. Luke 5 16, He would withdraw to desolate places to pray to be with His

Father. Matthew 6 6, He instructed them, when you pray, go to your room, shut your door,

pray to your Father who's in heaven. John 15, abide in me and I in you. James 4 8, draw

near to God and He'll draw near to you. Over and over the scripture says, make time for

God. And if we make time for God, and if we honor His name, and if we consider that He

is our exclusive God, and that we have a relationship with Him personally and not through some image,

then we're learning to live out of our faith in a deeper way. We're loving God in a committed,

compassionate way. We're living faith out. Bob Gough who writes books about love made

a statement that I want to use in this context. He says, love is never stationary. In the

end, love doesn't just keep thinking about it or keep planning for it. Simply put, love

does. I want to challenge you to love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with

all your soul, with all your strength. The Gospel of Mark adds the word strength. Actively

love God. Find ways to devote yourself to God. Four questions for you. Are you loving

God exclusively as a God of your life? Are you loving God personally? That is His character

and His ways. Are you loving God with the honor and respect due to His name? Are you

loving God and giving Him time in worship or prayer? Are you loving Him with all your

heart, all your soul, all your mind? You know, I still enjoy diving to the deep end of a

pool whenever I get a chance to do it. I read the other day when I was reading about swimming

pools, it's remarkable what you can find when you do sermon research, that the deepest swimming

pool in the world is in Dubai and it's 200 feet deep. 200 feet deep. I'd like to dive

into the depths of that pool. Now I'd like for you to imagine with me just a few moments

what that might look like for you to dive into the depths of such a pool. Except it's

not a pool of water that I want to urge you to think about. I want you to think about

diving into the depths of His grace, the depth of His love, the depth of His forgiveness.

And let that make you buoyant. Let that surround you on all sides. Let that cool you, comfort

you. Experience the depths of His love. It takes the risk. You're going to have to have

courage. But He beckons us, He calls us by saying, you shall love the Lord your God with

all of your heart, with all of your soul, and all of your mind. Let me tell you what

you can't do. You can't love God well until you accept His Son as your Lord and Savior.

That's the beginning part. You see, when you see Jesus dying on the cross for you and realize,

okay, that's God's love poured out for me. He demonstrates that. That's that's undeniable.

He loves me. He loves me. He died on the cross for me. And when you put your faith and trust

in what Jesus Christ did on the cross to forgive you of sin so that you might have that barrier

removed and the ability to have a relationship with Him, when you start by responding to

Jesus Christ, then you learn the love of God and you learn to love others with it. That's

where you begin. If you haven't begun that journey, we want you to begin it today. I

have three invitations for you. Number one, at the end of our service, after I pray, we'll

have decision stations that are open at the back. Stop by and talk to one of those men

or women who are there for one purpose to help you know what it means to have a relationship

with Jesus Christ. They'll talk with you as long as you want to talk and we'll be excited

to find out how that works for you and if you stop today, I promise you they're ready

to talk to you. Secondly, I invite you to our guest reception room just outside the

center exit doors and across the hallway. Love to visit with you about our church. By

the way, this may not interest you but I've got free tickets to first-time guests to the

food trucks. Alright, they got a lot of response right there. If you're a first-time guest,

come by because I really want to tell you about our church but also want to have lunch

with you and I'd look forward to that. Thirdly, I want to invite you to invite somebody else

to come with you next week. We're going to talk about the importance of relating to other

people based on what we learn in our relationship with God vertically. And if you think that

the world is not struggling in relationships, you're not in the same world I'm in. They

are struggling like never before but the church can be light when it comes to that. Let's

stand together for a closing word of prayer. Father, I'm so thankful for this day and this

opportunity that we have. Thank you for your word. Thank you so much for this great, great

response that Jesus gave the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Thank you for loving us so

that we can respond to that love, Lord. I pray today that you will speak to us in a

powerful way and allow us, Lord, allow us to experience your love in a life-changing

way and share it with others. Lord, I pray for those in the room today that need to make

decisions, let them make these decisions that are so important to their lives right here,

right now. And I ask all this in gratitude that Jesus made me pray. Amen.