"Love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your mind,
and with all your
soul, and with all your strength." (Mark 12:30)
Today I want to start by asking you a question, the very same question
a scribe asked Jesus and to which Jesus gave a very straight forward answer: “Which commandment is the first of all?”
The answer came
in our Scripture Reading from Mark’s Gospel chapter12, verse 30. I invite you to look at the bulletin cover and read
it with me; and I want us to be quite clear what we are reading here. These words express the most important thing
that God asks of every one of us. Of all the things that we can do with our lives, this verse expresses priority number one,
the ‘Numero Uno’ of all the things that God invites us to apply our lives to doing: Mark 12:30 “Love
the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (NRSV)
Today’s sermon is the second in our ‘40 days of Purpose’ campaign.
Last week we asked a question, “What on earth are we here for?” The Bible’s answer is that God created us to be the object of His love, that our lives matter to
God, and that God created us to live with a purpose. The way we find that purpose is by intentionally getting to know God.
It makes sense
that as over the next weeks we look at five purposes which should shape our lives, we start with the most important one, which
we can compress into one word - “Worship.” We were planned for God’s
pleasure. “The chief end of man”, as the Westminster Catechism declares, “Is to glorify God and enjoy Him
for ever!”
Christianity
is all about relationship; having a relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. There are always two directions in a relationship. God put us on this planet in order to love us. We find
our purpose when we return that love and seek to love God. In a nutshell that is what worship is about; expressing our love
to God.
Our verse from
Mark outlines how we can do that in three ways. We love God:
- Thoughtfully “with our mind”
- Passionately “with our heart and soul”
- Practically “with our strength”
1. Worship is focusing our attention on God.
God invites us
to worship Him thoughtfully, with our mind fully engaged and in gear, attentive to God’s call and God’s presence
and God’s purposes. Again it’s about relationship. God wants us to focus on Him because God is always focused
on us. Psalm 139:1-3
“You have looked deep into my heart, Lord, and You know all about me. You know when I am resting or
when I am working. You notice everything I do and everywhere I go.”
God pays constant attention to us, never takes
His eyes off us. God never stops focusing on us. The reason we are on the planet is so God can love us. And for love to flow,
you have to pay attention. Sometimes guys will say things like, “My wife, my kids, they say I don’t love them.
But I do everything for them. I work hard every day for them, why don’t they feel loved by me?” Because they want
attention.
What’s one of the most common phrases in
family relationships? “Honey, are you listening to me?” Attention is an incredible expression of love. And God
constantly focuses His attention on us. The correct response is then to focus our attention on Him!
There’s a problem with that. Most of us
have the attention span of a gnat. We live in a culture that feeds us and bombards us with so many mixed messages that our
minds are accustomed to not focusing on anything except ourselves.
Romans 8:7 says, “Focusing on yourself
is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, and ends up thinking
more about self than God.” So we have to decide to focus on God. Romans 12:2 “Don’t become so well-adjusted
to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God.” In order
to truly worship God we have to choose – choose to stop thinking about some things and start thinking about God.
How can we do that? Here are two scriptural suggestions.
Firstly, find
a place. Matthew 6:6 (MSG) Jesus tells us “Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role play before
God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin
to sense His grace.” Find a place in your day, in your schedule, on your calendar to get one-on-one with God. It
can be your drive to work, just after you’ve dropped the kids off at school, first thing in the morning, last thing
at night, whatever works for you… find a place to be you with God.
Secondly, stay in touch. Don’t leave God in that place. Psalm 105, verse 4“Worship Him continually.” Again each of us figures out how to do that in their own way. Some play praise and worship music. Some have little
reminders in their office, on notes, or on calendars. Best thing we can do is just invite God into everything we do. It’s
a decision we have to take responsibility for. It’s not going to happen
unless we decide it is going to happen.
When we find a place
for God and stay in touch with God, it makes such a difference to our day. The prophet Isaiah offers us this tremendous affirmation
as he says to God. “You will keep in perfect
peace all who trust in You, whose thoughts are fixed on You!” When we consciously decide to stay focused on God we awake to the fact that God is
constantly there for us! And that brings a peace to our day that is out of this world. Worship requires thoughtfully engaging
our minds to focus our attention on God. It also has to be about our passion. Loving God has to engage us heart and soul.
2. Worship is expressing our affection
to God.
Expressing our affection. That is part of loving
God with our heart and soul. Most of you are familiar with the first 3 words
of John 3:16 ‘God so loved’. If
you are in a close relationship with somebody and they by their words and actions demonstrate deep love for you, how far is
the relationship going to go if your response is ‘Whatever!’?
If any of you gentlemen went out and bought the
lady in your life some diamonds and some chocolates and some flowers and … well… whatever might buy to express
your love to them … and they turn around and say, “O.K, What have you done now?”…that’s not
the sign of a healthy relationship.
God loves us. That’s why God put us on the
planet. To love us. The right way to develop that relationship is to respond
with love. 1 John 4:19 (KJV) tells
us; “We love Him, because He first loved us.” Only through love can we get to really know somebody.
This idea of a God that we
can know as deeply as we are known by is nothing new. Centuries ago the prophet Hosea addressed the people of Israel …who
kept thinking they had to keep bringing God gifts and sacrifices... as though God were some demanding ogre - Hosea 6:6 (LB) “I don't want your sacrifices – I want your love! I don't want your offerings – I want you
to know Me!”
God doesn’t want duty and ritual and religion and rules and
regulations. God wants a relationship. And God is passionate about that! Way back in the book of Exodus we read in Exodus 34:14b (NLT) -“He is a God who is passionate about His relationship
with you.”
Both the words ‘passion’ and ‘affection’ are open
to misinterpretation. Affection can seem like a rather weak flowery word. Likewise passion can evoke images of soporific romance
novels. Maybe a more apt word to use would be ‘devotion’. God is devoted to seeking out people prepared to respond
to His love.
Which moves us to a third aspect of worship.
3. Worship is using our abilities for God.
God wants us to see Him with our minds. God wants us to sense Him with our heart and soul. He wants us to serve
Him with our strength. Hear what Paul writes to the Colossians: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were
working for the Lord and not for people.” (Colossians 3:23) (TEV)
It is not what
you do that matters. It’s who you are doing it for. And by that I don’t mean the head of the company or
the senior partner or the chief of police or your favorite teacher or whoever has their name on the notepaper at where you
work. I mean the boss of bosses, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings. If whatever
we are doing we are doing it for the One we claim to be number one in our lives, then that’s not work, that’s
worship.
Hear how Paul
explains that to the Church in Rome. “Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping,
eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering.”(Romans 12:1).
I don’t know how we’ve managed to compartmentalize worship, but we have. We think that worship is what
we do on Sunday, or in our private prayers or when we go to a small group. We check in and then check out again. “Well
that’s the worship done with; now let’s get on with life.”
Real purpose driven living doesn’t happen in a church. It doesn’t happen in a small group. It doesn’t
even happen in our personal time or quiet time with God. It happens in the ordinary, routine, mundane, things of daily life.
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,” putting your heart and soul in it, as though you were
working for the Lord.
We were planned for God’s pleasure. To live lives of worship. ‘The chief end of man is to glorify
God and enjoy Him for ever.’
- Worship is focusing our attention on God; something that has to be done thoughtfully “with
all our mind.”
- Worship is expressing our affection
to God; something we should engage in passionately “with
all our heart and soul.”
- Worship is using our abilities for God; something we should express practically “with all our strength.”
Mark 12:30 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (NRSV).
