The Wholeheart Disciple IV: Loving God With All Your Soul - The Wholeheart Disciple: Starting Points

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Hall.

So Paul is saying, it doesn't matter what others say about you.

It doesn't even matter what a court would say about you.

And even more radical than that, it doesn't matter what you think about you.

What matters is what God says about you.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

All right, turn to your Bibles if you have a Bible.

Turn to your app if you have an app, turn to your phone if you use a phone, to Mark chapter 12.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

And I want to continue with this idea of the greatest commandment.

So these, you know, these Pharisees came with questions about taxes, and these Sadducees came about questions about the resurrection.

And then the scribe comes along and says, What's the greatest commandment?

And Jesus gives us, arguably, the greatest statement that he ever made.

So the greatest man who ever lived gave us the greatest command ever given that we might experience the greatest love ever offered.

And so in Mark 12, 29, he says this.

Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart.

And we talked about this last week.

With all of your soul, we're going to talk about that this week.

With all of your mind, we're going to talk about that next week.

And with all of your strength, this is the first, and as I said, Matthew says the greatest commandment that there is in all of Scripture, and they agree with him.

Men and women, listen closely.

I really believe this.

I believe this from experience, and I believe it theologically, and I believe it biblically, that when you start to grasp this commandment in your own heart, it's the key to breaking the power of lust.

It's the key to breaking the power of fear.

It's the key to breaking the power of jealousy.

It's the key to breaking the power of envy.

It's the key to breaking the power of that self, that false self that we've lived so long in because of shame, oftentimes from our childhood, that has caused us to evaluate our life based on our sin instead of based on God's love.

And I believe that this is the most important issue for contending for holiness, but also for contending for joy in our life.

If you want joy, this is the place we start.

If you're looking for power, if you're looking for peace, if you're looking for a joy and a love in your life that pervades your circumstances and goes past those relationships where you've been hurt, is to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

It's all here.

But you have to contend for it.

You have to contend for it.

It does not come easily, but it is a prayer of our heart.

And when we begin to discover that, begin to see victory in that, God, I believe, begins to work in our heart in a new way.

And I think we have to be preoccupied with this commandment.

It's every day, saying, God, I want to love you with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

I don't know how to do it.

I know I'm going to fail today.

I know that at work I'm going to make mistakes.

I know that I'm going to let my family down from time to time.

But Lord, I'm going to love you with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Would you empower me to do that?

There is breakthrough, church.

There is breakthrough when we start to get this.

I've never believed that primarily you break the power of sin in your life by focusing on breaking the power of sin in your life.

That when you and you take your mind off of anything that it might be on, and you start to focus in on the sin in your life.

Now there's a place for that.

There's a need for that for repentance, because you can't repent of what you don't know what to repent of.

But after that, after you realize that, what is it that gets us out of that?

Because so few do.

And I believe it's because we take our eyes too often and rely on the focus of that particular sin or that particular area rather than putting it on Christ, because he could have said this in so many different ways.

And yet he said, This is the greatest commandment, not that you walk in holiness by focusing on your sin, but that you walk in joy by loving me with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, with all your strength.

The next few weeks I think you'll understand the global nature, the holistic nature of loving God in each of those areas, that Jesus is the one.

He's the one who prescribes.

So last week we looked at loving God with your heart, with your whole heart.

And I said that it's impossible to do.

You can't love God with all your whole heart.

You just can't.

It's not possible in your own power to do that.

But when you were born again, Jeremiah says it, and Ezekiel says it, you are given a new heart.

You are given a new spirit.

So you have a new heart.

You're not loving God with the old heart, you're loving God with a new heart.

You've been given not just your spirit, you've been given the Holy Spirit.

And so the power of this new heart and this new spirit that God has given you, you can start to love him with all of your heart.

And so as we begin to love him with our whole heart, God begins to do a work in our life because at the whole heart level is where we are and where we live emotionally.

We like to say, I've fallen in love with her, I've fallen in love with him, I love him with all my heart because we know, and the Greeks knew, and the Bible also and the Hebrews before that know that the heart is the seat of the emotions.

It's the center.

And so God wants us to love him emotionally, not just intellectually.

I'm not talking about emotionalism, but I'm talking about an emotional intimacy with the Lord.

But it's hard.

It's hard for the male gender, especially.

It's hard for us to connect because we are taught from day one, I think actually God made us that way, to tend to be very intellectual, very, very cut and dry, very logical in our thinking.

This is not illogical, it's translogical.

It's not illogical, but it's translogical that beyond just our thinking, because we're going to get to loving God with all of our mind next week, but he wants us to emotionally connect with him, and I believe the only way we do that is through worship and prayer.

I think it's the key way we do that is through worship.

It's not the, I guess it's not the only way, but it's the main way is through worship and prayer.

And so that's why we talk so much here about PBJ, prayer, Bible, and journal.

About PB and J, prayer, Bible, journal.

Spending time with the Lord each day, having a place in your home or at your office or wherever you do it, and worshiping the Lord.

Put on your earphones with your computer or with your phone or whatever it is, and just take a couple songs on YouTube or something, and just close your eyes and worship the Lord.

Having that intimate connection with Him is changing you.

And the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are so excited about you.

They're already excited about you, but they're really excited.

He's getting it.

Joe's getting it.

Susan's getting it.

They understand because we talk about, what is it right here?

In verse 29, he says, first of all, the commandment is hero, Israel, the Lord our God is one.

So this community of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have been loving each other for eternity past.

And so when we start to love Him, when we start to ask God, God, I want to emotionally connect with you, I want to have an intimacy with you with sanctified emotions.

You know it's possible to have unsanctified emotions in worship.

I mean, you can you can cater to the flesh even in worship.

I've seen it, I've watched it on YouTube.

It's like, man, that is so fleshly.

But sanctified emotions is what I'm talking about here.

Where we're where there's holy emotions unto the Lord where we feel close to him.

But we have to pursue it.

We have to go after, you have to contend for that.

It does not come naturally.

So we talked about that last week.

But today I want to talk about loving God with all of your soul.

What in the world is that?

Loving God with your soul is loving God in the place of our identity.

Don't miss this.

This is your identity.

This is our identity.

What is identity?

The soul is the identity.

Those are our deeply held values of how you and I define success.

That's what an identity is.

Identity are deeply held values of how you and I define whether we are successful or not.

I'm going to give you three focused possibilities for how we find our identity.

The first comes from the world's system.

And that would be what I would call an outward focus.

You look at achievements, you look at accomplishments, you look at how big your bank account is, you look at where you are in the pecking order, your company, that's the outward focused identity.

All of us come out of that.

That is the world we grew up in as kids.

In the outward focus identity, and most Christian men, less so Christian women, you're in the next group.

So you're not off the hook yet.

But for most men, this is our struggle.

At the whole heart advance, we never talk about what kind of job we have.

So in small groups and everything we do as far as relationships at the wholeheart advance, we ask men not to tell anybody what they do for a living.

Because that's what we do.

We have a pecking order, we have a way of identifying each other based on how much money we make, what kind of job we have, because that is where our identity comes from.

The second identity focus is inward.

This is where women struggle, I think.

And the inward focus is I would call it the psychological perspective of self-esteem.

The term I say the last 25 years is I've got to find myself.

Why'd you quit school?

I've got to find myself.

Why'd you quit the job?

I've got to find myself.

I was looking up something two nights ago and went to a particular website.

It was a Napoleon Bonaparte quote from Count of Monte Cristo.

And I was curious about it.

I don't think it was ever Napoleon's quote, but it's from the Count of Monte Cristo from the from the book.

So I was looking up the meaning of it, and I went to a website of a guy, because it was the first one that came up, who was trying to find himself.

So the inward focus of identity of finding ourselves.

That's another way.

You know, find yourself.

The third is not outward, and it's not inward, but it's upward.

It's finding God.

It's finding out what he says about you.

It's finding about what he cares about in you, what he's after.

And so in the great novel by Isak Denison out of Africa, she writes, quote, faith in the idea God had when he made us.

This is the identity, this is the biblical Christian identity that we search for of loving God with all of our soul.

It is discovering not what society says about you, not what psychology says about you, but what does the creator God say about you?

Who does he think you are?

Did he create you for a purpose?

Did he create you for a joyful mission?

Soren Kierkegaard, the great philosopher, said, quote, in fact, what is called the secular mentality consists of simply such men who, so to speak, mortgage themselves to the world.

They use their capacities, amass money, carry on enterprises, perhaps to make a name in history.

But they themselves, this is important, but they themselves, they are not.

No self for whose sake they could venture anything, no self before God.

So to base our identity of loving God with all of our soul is to take our eyes off the outward, take our eyes off the inward, quit trying to find yourself and find God.

And that when you find God, you find yourself.

It's a new identity.

It's an irony of all ironies that when we quit seeking after our own identity, we find our identity in the one who gave us an identity through Jesus Christ.

So turn in your Bibles to Paul, 1 Corinthians 4.

Look at 1 Corinthians 4 because Paul really understood this.

He really got it.

Very, very interesting passage.

In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul says something that is quite unique in reference to identity.

Let a man so consider us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God, verse 2.

Moreover, it is required in stewards that one be found faithful, verse 3, but with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you.

Outward focus.

Or by a human court, I'm not going to be judged by.

In fact, this is interesting, I don't even judge myself.

For I know of nothing against myself, yet I'm not justified by that, but he who judges me is the Lord.

So Paul is saying, it doesn't matter what others say about you, it doesn't even matter what a court would say about you, and even more radical than that, it doesn't matter what you think about you.

What matters is what God says about you.

This is crazy.

This is crazy thinking.

Because we know of Nazi guards who are in concentration camps on trial and say, My conscience is clear.

I was just taking orders.

Well, just because your conscience is clear doesn't mean you're clear.

It's what God says about us.

And it's an identity in him.

Paul has discovered that.

And loving God with our soul is loving God, a God who loves you and says you're beloved.

Who says you are worthy of love.

You are worthy of forgiveness.

You are worthy of a new life.

I love you.

I have adopted you into my family.

I love you.

I love you even before the foundations of the earth, Psalm 139.

I loved you with an everlasting love, Jeremiah says.

And so when we start to love God with all of our soul, we're agreeing with God.

We're saying, God, I get my identity from you.

I'm beloved of you.

I'm loved by you.

I love you.

I give you my heart back.

And that's why I carry this little card.

I'm gonna read it to you.

You gotta make your own card.

Or you can have mine.

I can leave it up here.

This is what I try to pray every day.

Lord, empower me to love you today with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Jesus, I may fail today.

I may let someone down today.

I probably won't do any everything perfect today, but I'm worthy, I'm beloved, I'm adopted, I'm gifted, I'm successful because you say I am.

I'm going to take risks today and love you and others.

Thank you that I'm successful because you love me and I'm beloved and I'm worthy of love.

Men and women, we start praying this every day.

God begins to change your identity.

Because here's what's fun is to get in a group where all this temptation and pressure is upon us to pose and pretend and maybe even brag about something in our life so that we can somehow be viewed in a certain way and to realize that in Christ, you don't have to do that anymore.

You're free.

You're loved, you're already successful.

You're already free.

Who cares what other people think about you?

Who cares what you think about you?

Because some of you come out of some pretty crummy backgrounds.

And you've been listening to that inner voice your whole life that you're a loser.

You've been listening to that inner voice your whole life that you can't do this because that's what dad used to say, or you can't do that because that's what mom said, or you can't be this or that.

Well, you might not be able to.

But now it's time to reform our heart and reform our thinking into what does Christ say about me?

You're never going to be a great athlete.

Maybe you're never going to be a millionaire.

Maybe you're never going to be whatever those things that you wanted to be, but it doesn't matter now because what's happening is we're beginning to form our identity in what Christ says about us, and in so doing, he starts to form our soul.

Because here's our problem.

Our problem is shame.

And shame captures us, and shame enslaves us to a way of thinking and a way of viewing life that cripples us from being all that God wants us to be.

And here's what shame is.

A lot of definitions for shame.

Here's my definition.

Shame is if you knew this thing about me, we would disconnect.

It would cause a disconnection in our relationship.

So I hide it.

I hide it in the dark places of my heart.

I don't want you to know that about me.

I don't want you to know what happened to me or what was done to me.

So we hold it in, and men and women, it stays there.

It doesn't leave.

You can be forgiven, you can be saved, you can be going to heaven, but if you haven't dealt with those shame areas of your life, you're crippling yourself.

And God wants us free.

God wants us free.

And that God-ordained biblical Jesus identity is where God comes and he wants to break the power of shame.

Because here's the deal we are made for connection.

We are made for connection with others.

And that connection with people is always broken with shame.

And so God is wanting to break the power of shame in our lives.

And here's how he does it.

Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

2 Corinthians chapter 4, Paul gives us.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

The secret to breaking the power of shame.

We're going to talk about this in greater detail at the Whole Heart Advance.

2 Corinthians 4.

Oh my goodness.

2 Corinthians 4, 1 through 6.

Man, you should memorize it.

Because I don't know of any passage in all of the Old and New Testament that so practically shows us what the gospel can do.

It doesn't usually do this.

Listen now.

It doesn't usually do this in our lives because we don't know how to let the light in.

So I'm not talking about salvation, men and women.

I'm talking about sanctification.

I'm talking about that walk with God where we go after, we pursue, we contend with loving God with our identity, loving God with our soul.

Here's what he says.

Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart.

But we have renounced the hidden things of shame.

We renounce the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

Now, when I read verse 2 as a pastor and a preacher and a teacher of the Word, what he's saying here that speaks to me specifically is I can walk in craftiness.

I can walk deceitfully, even with the Word of God, if I'm not dealing with my own personal shame.

Here's the first step.

Number one, you have to acknowledge that you have shame.

And that's huge.

Let me just tell you, that's 90%.

If 90% of the time, men and women, if we can come to understand we have shame, we have those errors of our life that are hidden away that we don't want anybody to know about, and we begin to acknowledge, I've got an issue there.

That's what he's saying here.

He's saying renouncing the hidden, hidden, shame is always hidden, and if you say I don't have any shame, you got it probably worse than anybody.

Hidden things of shame.

Those places of our heart, those dark areas, because here's what he says: love me, what does he say?

With all of your heart.

Now, two ways to look at that.

One is all in.

And we talk about that around here a lot.

Be all in, burn the boats, wholehearted.

But there's another way to look at this too, church, and that is that when we love God with our whole heart, that means we love Him even with the dark places of our heart.

So instead of running from our shame, we start running toward our shame.

We run toward it and we say, Jesus, I've got this issue.

And that's why I have lust issues, that's why I have jealousy issues, that's why I have envy issues, that's why I can't get set free.

That's why every time I get around a bunch of guys, I have to kind of put my chest out and start boasting about something.

Because I'm a poser and I'm a pretender.

And that's the false self.

And I want the true self.

I want the real, authentic me that you created me for.

And that's what Dennison's saying in Out of Africa, that that's the key to find the true self, the real self, who you were created to be.

That's freedom.

That's joy.

That's when you start doing amazing things.

You see, we've grown to believe that happiness is found in being successful when the Bible teaches us that we're successful when we find happiness and joy within.

So the overflow is the opposite of what the world tells us.

Instead of looking outside, instead of looking inside, we start looking upward at him.

Well, he continues, verse 3.

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age is blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and take ourselves as bondservants for Jesus' sake, for it is the God who commanded, this is really important, light to shine out of the darkness.

Not just shining on the darkness, light shining out of the darkness.

That nuance is huge here.

Many people walk the aisle, stand up at an evangelistic outreach.

Maybe you've raised your hand at the road or whatever, to let the light shine on your darkness.

But what's exciting is when God's light starts to shine out of your darkness.

So first it's acknowledging our shame, but then second of all, it's being vulnerable with our shame.

With some blood-stained allies.

We need blood-stained allies.

That's what you'll get at the Whole Heart Advance.

My prayer, our leadership team's prayer, the cadre of worshipper and warrior putting together the conference is that you'll come out with a couple guys that might become, in the days ahead, blood-stained allies.

You don't need more friends to fish with.

I mean, that's cool.

I mean, I like to go fishing with friends.

I mean, you never talk.

That's what guys do when they go fishing.

They never talk except about fishing.

You ever notice that when women go out, they go to coffee, they look at each other.

They actually have a meaningful conversation.

Guys never look at each other.

They look at the fish they caught.

They look at the lake, they look at the river.

He's here, I'm here, they're there, you know.

How's it going?

Man, I just got a strike.

Awesome.

Cool.

I'm for that.

I mean, I don't know, fishing with some guys better than going alone.

It is.

I'm not talking about that though.

That's a different category.

I'm talking about blood-stained allies.

Allies fight together.

Allies battle together.

Allies have a mission.

Isn't today, is this today Gold Sunday?

Is that what it's called?

Gold Star Sunday?

Gold Star Mother's Day.

Do we have any women in here who have lost loved ones in battle?

In the military?

Or any sons or daughters who've lost loved ones.

Because this is a day where we honor those who've lost loved ones in war, in battle.

Okay.

But men and women, here's the deal.

There's also spiritual gold star.

And we're losing our men left and right in this nation.

And the reason we're losing them is most of the time they don't have a blood-stained ally.

Most of you men, and I think it's probably we probably have a better average than anywhere else, but many of you men in this room don't have a close brother that you could go and talk to about your lust and not be judged.

That you could go to and talk about your envy or your jealousy or your feelings of failure.

Even Jesus had three.

Peter, James, and John.

Jesus! The Son of God had Peter, James, and John.

Men, you need blood-stained allies.

Women, you need blood-stained allies.

Those are women that you can talk to, you can share your heart with without being judged.

And that's the reason I say blood-stained.

Because they've been through the similar battles that you have and they understand.

Anybody who's willing to open up their heart and let the light shine on their shame is someone who's wanting to do the right thing.

Why would I judge that?

I'm with them.

Now there could be a temptation.

Well, why do you keep doing that?

And there's all kinds of judgmental ways we go.

I say this though.

A bloodstained ally is one who has been bloodied up in battle and knew and knows it took a long time to get healed and to get free, and we're going to journey with you together because somebody journeyed with us together.

Or maybe they didn't and you wish they had.

Because all of us in this room have experienced betrayal.

All of this room have experienced being cut down by the church, or being cut down by a pastor, or being cut down by a spouse or a girlfriend.

We've experienced those things.

And so let's get honest here.

Instead of acting like everything's always just, you know, joyful and happy and forgiven.

And it I love it when it is, and we should, man, rejoice in that.

The reality is that oftentimes we're half-hearted because we don't have a whole-hearted brother or sister who'll walk with us and say, I know how I know what that's like.

That's loving God with your soul.

That's that's a new identity.

And then thirdly, we walk it out.

We walk that out daily.

We walk it out daily.

So here's the deal, church.

And then I'm gonna sit down.

You gotta be laser focused on this stuff.

You've got to be laser focused on loving God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

That's joy.

That's freedom.

And that's the great irony.

Tim Keller writes this in his book, Making Sense of God.

The great paradox is that we find ourselves this unconquerable identity and confidence only through humbling ourselves.

Giving up the right to self-determination and following Christ.

Jesus said, whoever finds their life will lose it, whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

That when we stop trying to find and serve ourselves and instead give ourselves in service to God and others, as we put our faith in Christ, we find ourselves.

This is the pathway of Jesus.

So, church, don't look to the world.

It will always let you down.

Don't look inside because you'll deceive yourself.

But look to Christ, who, no matter where you go, no matter what you do, no matter how many mistakes you've made, he loves you.

And you need to remind yourself that you're beloved in him.

And in so doing, we find a new life of loving God with our identity.

And that identity brings a confidence.

You ever been around people who you just know they don't necessarily need your accolades, but there's a quiet confidence there?

That's somebody who's probably discovering an identity in Christ.

You've been around others, they just have to have that.

They're just as they need the position, they need the place, and that's someone who's never gotten free from the outward establishment that comes through an identity related to this world.

Let's walk in greater and greater freedom of a wholehearted devotion to Christ.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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