Please turn with me to your Bibles to Matthew chapter 22 verses 30 through 34 through 40 This is found on page number 980 in the Bible underneath the seat in front of you Once again, this is page 980 and it's Matthew chapter 22 verses 34 through 40 This is the word of the Lord Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees the Pharisees got together One of them an expert in the law tested him with this question Teacher which is the greatest commandment in the law Jesus replied Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind This is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it to love your neighbor as yourself All the law and all the prophets hang on these two commandments. This is the word of Lord We pray with me Lord Jesus the grass withers and the flowers fade But your word the word of God stands forever We ask these things in Jesus name Amen Now this week we're veering off course a little bit from our study in Hebrews to talk about the new year Because this is the time in the year where we get excited about setting our goals and our new years resolutions Now today I'm going to be talking about going all out for Jesus But before I get into this I want to talk about why we are called to give him our all In just a few minutes, I'll be going through a list of priorities that we need to make But as I talk about these priorities, I don't want any of us Leaving here feeling exhausted already at the beginning of the year feeling defeated feeling like we're gonna wave the white flag of surrender But instead I want us to feel inspired to live this life for Christ as best as we can and the only way that we're going to feel inspired Is is if we can fully understand his extravagant grace You see every single one of us in here needs to be constantly reminded about what grace is and Simply put before we trusted in Jesus We all had the death sentence because of our sins God is not only a God of love But he's also a God of wrath and that he must punish sin And so a price had to be paid for all of our evil and that price that was paid was the blood of Jesus Christ Now imagine yourself Standing a hundred yards away from a large dam of water It's 10,000 miles wide and 10,000 miles high And all of a sudden there's a breach in the dam and the waters begin to flood out and a torrential flood is coming towards you Just when you think these waters are going to overpower you and kill you All of a sudden the ground right before your eyes breaks open and the water flows Beneath you leaving you untouched You see my friends. This is what Jesus did for us Just as the warring waters of God's wrath is rushing towards us to punish our sins Jesus Christ opens up the ground By lying on the cross and taking on God's wrath He did this for us and this is what grace is Now as we live this life we're not alone in this journey Jesus has risen from the dead and he's helping us through this life by giving us the Holy Spirit You see God's marvelous grace is the reason we should feel inspired to live for Jesus Now what do I mean when I say to go all out for Jesus? Look with me in this text that it was just read to you in Matthew 22 Jesus has been questioned by two different groups of people The first group was that of the Sadducees and the Sadducees were a group of people that didn't believe in a resurrection They didn't believe in an afterlife. They didn't believe that there is a heaven and a hell and so they're asking Jesus questions and all of a sudden Jesus gave them an answer a profound answer by saying there's gonna be a resurrection and there's gonna be an eternal life So be ready So right after he kind of silenced the Sadducees he moved on in this other group called the Pharisees came in and The Pharisees to give you a little background There were people who followed the Old Testament law to a tea in fact there were 613 commandments that they tried to follow So when this Pharisee was asking Jesus a question, which is the greatest commandment? He was trying to prove Jesus wrong and he was also trying to get Jesus into a debate with him Because he was expecting that you really couldn't give a good answer out of the 613 commandments You couldn't give one commandment answer But Jesus gives him a profound statement and he silences him by saying this He says that man is to be involved in a total love Conventment to God and the way we do that is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart with all of your soul and with all of your mind This silences the Pharisee when he's expecting to debate with Jesus and prove Jesus wrong Jesus silenced him Now if you look at Luke chapter 10 verse 27 in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5 It adds the word strength in there so we would read it as love the Lord with all of your heart all of your mind all of your soul and all of your strength Now what is meant in all these words is that our inner and our outer lives are to be devoted towards Christ And the main point that I want to hit home here and that Jesus is trying to hit home is not to focus on these four words but instead to focus on one word and that one word is all We are to give our all for Jesus it reminds me of that hymn over the wondrous cross where it said love God's love is so amazing so divine it demands my soul my life my all You see God's whole hearted love must not be answered in a half-hearted manner In his book radical I've been reading this book radical by the pastor David plat He says plainly put a relationship with Jesus requires total superior and exclusive devotion That this is what it means to go all out for Jesus So Jesus starts out by saying the greatest command is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart all of your mind all of your soul and all your strength But in verse 30 not 39 he continues on and he says the second is like it to love your neighbor as yourself When he's saying that the second is like it He's saying that the second commandment is of related importance to the first that they are linked together as Commandments because they both involve love they both involve self and they both are old testament concepts As I mentioned before the Pharisee expected Jesus to give him one answer but Jesus gives him two and in verse 40 Jesus tells the Pharisee that all of the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments Now the word hang means to depend or suspend Imagine this these two commandments are the nail or the hook from which you can hang all of the Old Testament These two commandments summarize the law of the Old Testament So loving God and loving self are really what matters in this life So I want to first look at what it means to love God and There's four areas our heart our mind our soul and our strength when we say the heart We just it's very simple. It's the center of our lives We are to put God as the center of our lives You see the heart is the hub of we the hub of wheel of man's existence the main spring of all of his thoughts all of his words and all of his deeds So everything flows from the heart But we are also to love the Lord with our mind and that means our intellectualism our attitude our thoughts We also are to love the Lord with our soul and the Greek word suke means Emotions or feelings in this context. We're to love the Lord with our feelings and get fired up for him And to love the Lord with all of our strength means we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices because our bodies are a holy temple Fleecing to the Lord but also this means to love our neighbor To love our neighbor So let's unpack these these three things I don't want to emphasize heart because that's kind of the thing that overflows But I want to emphasize mind, soul and strength So loving the Lord with our mind. This means we are to be devoted to learning about him We don't just need to know him or know about him We need to know him and in a way to know him We've got to be in his word and be soaked in his word and just this past week I was looking at my bookshelf and I have four different Bibles with different translations And I'm thinking my goodness I have the Bible right here in front of my eyes with all different kinds of translations And then I go on BibleGateway.com and there's hundreds of translations you can look at by the touch of your finger But see it wasn't always like this There was in fact in around the 1500s Queen Mary known as Bloody Mary of England She was queen at the time and she said no to English Bibles She actually said if there's an English Bible around Then you will be arrested You will either be killed or you will be thrown in prison if I catch you reading the Bible And so as a result of this many Christians fled from England because they didn't want to be a part of it But those who stayed in England were persecuted for their faith There were even some who Would put a Bible underneath the stool And so when the authorities would come in to see it The stool would be overturned around upright and then when they would leave they would turn the stool over and read the scriptures Taped underneath the stool. Let me give an example Benjamin Franklin and his autobiography said this about his great grandparents This is Benjamin Franklin his great-grandparents. He said this about his family He said this this this family of ours was early in the Reformation And continued Protestants through the reign of Queen Mary when they were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their zeal against popery They had got an English Bible and to conceal and secure it. It was fastened open with tapes Under and within the cover of a joint stool When my great-grandfather read it to his family he turned up the joint stool upon his knees Turning over the leaves then under the tapes One of the children stood at the door to give notice if he saw the operator coming who was an officer of the spiritual court In that case the stool was turned again from its feet when the Bible remained concealed under it as before This is amazing because Franklin's relatives his great-grandparents risked their lives just to read the word of God As he said in this quote They literally taped the Bible underneath the stool And so when the authorities left their home they would turn it over and the father would read to his family And he would have a child actually standing watch at the door to make sure the authorities weren't gonna come in to catch them Because if they did catch them they'd be thrown in prison You see these people risked their lives just to read the word of God And this is what it looks like to really be inspired to be in his word and to learn his truth Because only the Bible is going to give us the ultimate truth that we need And that's how it's going to flow within our mind Now there are other good theology books we can read there are also other good books on different topics we could read such as Science or history we can learn about God and those things But I would encourage you to love the Lord with all of your mind By learning more about him Now as I talk about this I must warn us all that it can be easy To overemphasize learning so much and I think here in the Presbyterian Church We love our doctrine we love our theology and that's a great thing. We've got great theology here But sometimes we can come across as know it all and we end up studying so much that we don't Love the Lord by serving our neighbors and we don't spend time loving the Lord by just Feeling his presence and letting him Overcome our emotions, but instead we're so ingrained on knowledge that It can end up overtaking us and turn people away In fact, if if we become like this we'll end up looking like this guy Or he's got a big head, but a little body Now another way we can go all out for Jesus is by loving him with our soul in other words emotions You see we are emotional beings and God wants us to get fired up for him He commands us to delight in him Now have you ever left a worship service or a church event feeling just inspired and changed You see this is what Jesus does to us. He stirs our hearts. He moves us to the point of tears I've told you before I love football. I love playing I love watching it and this time of year is awesome because we just had the bowl games And there's still a few going on till January 10th this year We also have NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl is coming up I love this time of year But I couldn't help but think as I'm watching football. It's 250 50 pound men running as fast as I can hitting each other and also you have a ball made of Pickskin and they're throwing it around It seems kind of ridiculous, but yet I love it But I couldn't help but think I get so fired up for football Why can't I get this fired up on Sunday morning in worship? Why can't I get this fired up with reading the word? I need to do that because Jesus will inspire me to move forward He will inspire me for action And I would encourage us all to allow Jesus to overflow your emotions It's okay to cry and I tell this to men often You know men were so ingrained with our you know, don't show your feelings or your soft side But but in scripture it talks over and over again about men who are crying to the Lord and rejoicing and David and chapter same second Samuel chapter six He's rejoicing and dancing with all of his might when the tabernacle comes into the city of Jerusalem That's a great example of a true man letting his emotions overtaking him and it's okay sometimes I think we need to pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us and lead us to him more But once again, I want to warn us that if we overemphasize our emotions if we're always feeling and we're And we're not relying on any truth or foundation if we're not serving But we're just letting God work and we're waiting on him working Or I'm sorry if we're just waiting on God to work then often we can end up looking like these guys Where we let our emotions get the best of us
Now a third way we can go all out for Jesus is by loving him with all of our strength In other words loving him with our hands And of course this talks about Giving him our all as far as offering our bodies up for a living sacrifice and to be a holy temple pleasing to the Lord I also think it means to serve our neighbors And some of us can be way over committed We can have all kinds of things where we're serving the church serving our community We're constantly serving where we're not in the word and we're not letting God overtake our emotions And then we'll end up like a bodybuilder like this guy Arnold's fortunate the governor of California You know where you have big arms but little head um We can end up looking like that if if we don't have a balance so the goal here Is to strive for a balance of truth For experience and for action and other in other words we should be continually continually working with on on our faith By learning by learning about God by letting him overtake our emotions and by serving him with all that we have Now one other main component I would like to address is that of putting our neighbors as ourselves We've talked about what loving God looks like now. What does loving our neighbor as ourselves look like And I'm going to address five different neighbors very briefly and those five five neighbors are family work The world church and government look with me now at the screen This is called the circles of priorities and this is taken from a book Balancing life demands by the author Jay Grant Howard And in his book Howard talks about how the Bible never actually gives us a list of priorities But instead it gives us categories of responsibilities For example if I were to ask you the five things in your life If you were to number the top five things in your life, what would they be you would probably say number one is God Hopefully then you'd probably say family maybe but once you get to the third thing on the list it begins to get a little confusing Because you might say well work is important But then you'd say well wait a second missions is important then you might say wait a second I think church is important So there's a really kind of a gray area when it comes to a chronological list of priorities And so what this guy Jay Grant Howard is saying is that God never gives us a list of priorities But instead he gives us categories of responsibilities where all five of these things are important these five neighbors are important And they are of the same importance You see one other thing I want to mention is that As we know that God is the most important thing in our life He also says that we are important and that serving our neighbors are important Now when I say that we are important that may sound a little arrogant to say oh I'm one of a one of God's priorities But in all reality John Calvin once said that in order for me to know God I must know myself and in order for me to know myself I must know God In other words if I'm informed and if I'm obedient to the two greatest commandments of loving God and loving others That makes me important to fulfill these obligations That means I must assign top priority to my life my growth my responsibilities and my relationships Now as we look at this diagram As you can see God is placed in the center So obviously God will be the center of our lives, but the next circle says self And the reason self is on there is because God wants to be significant in our life This makes relating to his truth to every aspect of my person a top priority You see the arrows there on the on the chart here represent That It helps us to realize that not only do God's truth and power equip us to function rightly in these five areas But the experiences I have in these areas drive me back to God In other words God Gives us these experiences and he equips us to go and serve faithfully And once we serve faithfully those experiences lead us back to God. So that's why the arrows are there Now I want to talk a little bit about these five neighbors as we Start to serve others now. Let's talk first about family And we have just gone through the holiday season with Christmas with new years And so many of us were around family members and some family members that we just can't stand Frankly like we may not like some of our in-laws. We may not like some of our cousins And so when we approach loving our neighbor as our self I would challenge all of you this year 2011 to make it a goal To talk to those family members that you can't stand To communicate with them honestly and openly. I have talked to so many families who haven't talked to their brothers or sisters or cousins or fathers or mothers for years Because there's some built-up tension I would encourage you if you haven't yet to resolve that conflict To remember what what grace has been shown to you through Jesus And when that grace inspires you, it should inspire you then to show grace to your family members So I would encourage you if you haven't talked to those who annoy you or who you have some kind of issue with Please talk to them this year. Make it a priority with your family. That's what putting family above yourself looks like The second neighbor I want to talk about is that of work And we are either when it comes to work we're either employees or we're employers If you're an employer or you are to treat those who work for you kindly and impartially If you're an employee you're to render your services obediently and subsequently In his book a man's guide to work The author Pat Morley gives us practical suggestions to employers and employees look with me at the screen To love our neighbor at work means if you're an employee You're to work with excellence and with integrity. You're to give it your all with whatever project you're working on You are to make sure your boss knows what you need to be successful Some of us are working boring jobs in order to make it more productive talk to your boss let them know hey, I need more to do I need this this training to be more effective in my job A third thing to do is to be content with what you have and this is so tough because we spend almost half of our waking hours at work But I would encourage us to be content with what we have in our jobs that have been given to us Now if you're an employer Practical advice would be to provide decent wages and normal working hours for your employee To honestly assess performance and that isn't just a one-time assessment. This is a go assess as you go So for instance if an employee messes up you talk to them on the spot and try to help them improve if they do well you praise them on the spot If you're an employer you create an environment where employees can grow and where they can flourish Delegate your responsibilities and let them Use their abilities to help the company grow This is what it means to love your neighbor as yourself when it comes to work Now the third neighbor I want to mention is that of world And according to the most liberal estimates a third of the world is Christian You know what that means that means that there are over 4.5 billion people in the world at this moment who have never heard of Jesus Christ You see after we've experienced the truth of God's grace he calls us to spread his glory throughout the ends of the earth And the question is how can we do this here in Orlando Well, we can do it first by praying We can pray for specific nations that are unreached and there are great resources that we can buy this year In fact one resource I'd recommend is a book called Operation World by Patrick Johnston This book contains detailed information on every nation of the world It updates us on gospel work in every country and prayer request for every country So I would encourage you to buy Operation World by Patrick Johnston You might also feel called to financially support a missionary Or even go yourself on a short term or a long term trip Let's be a people this year in 2011 of prayer for the lost and the unreached people groups
The fourth neighbor is that of the church and if you're not a member of a Bible believing church If you're not a member of UPC I would challenge you. I would encourage you to join this church this year There are so many privileges to being a member of UPC and just of a church in general. I'll give you two The first the first privilege is that of voting you get to nominate and vote for your elders for your deacons for your pastors You can do that The second privilege you have is that you're being shepherded and even disciplined if need be by your elders This is a great thing It's a privilege because you have elders who are praying for you who are loving you who are shepherding you and especially in time of need So I would I would challenge you to join a church this year if you haven't already The other thing I would challenge you to do in regards to church is we're about to take communion in a few minutes And when you take it I would hate for you to do it out of routine I would hate for you to feel like you're doing it out of duty, but instead let the spirit work Open up your heart for him to work in your life Because Jesus when you're doing this it represents him the body and blood of Jesus that was given for us So prepare your hearts right now for communion in just a few minutes This is how we are to love the Lord with all of our heart my soul and strength when we take communion It's just a big reminder of what that looks like Now fifth and finally I want to talk about that of government And this one may come a little surprise to you, but in Romans 13 one Paul tells us that every believer is to be a responsible citizen You see government provides religious freedom It limits the power of business and industry it protects the rights of family And it does its best to punish evil and reward the good that's what it's designed for Now to love our government well means to be praying for our leaders It means to vote in elections. It means to become more informed on issues and voting records And it could even mean getting involved in the PTA Supporting a candidate or even attending a civic club You see we're called to be on the front lines and do what's right in our community and in our culture And sometimes this means we are to speak up on a political issue or a candidate Now obviously there are going to be times where we have to spend more time focusing on one Over the other for instance You're going to spend over almost half of your 112 waking hours at work And so you can't just tell your boss know or you're going to get fired So you're going to spend more time at work than you will on government for instance And you might spend more time with your family than you would at church But the problem is if we begin to over emphasize one area Everything else will be affected and we're going to look like a bald spot An attire that is ballooning out and ready to blow Just like this if you overemphasize it You see it makes the going rough for everybody So I would encourage you if you're working one week 70 hours and you just have to make deadlines The next week spend more time with your family If you're spending too much time serving the church cut back a little bit and be out in the community more You get the point just It's so easy to be over committed and if I and I encourage you if you're over committed cut back If you're bombarded with the quests requests learn to say no Jesus tells us let your yes BS and your nobie know So if you're already serving the church in five areas and I come to you And remind you this and I come to you and ask you hey, will you serve in this ministry say I can I'm already serving in five areas I'd say that's great And I might even say you're if you're serving in five areas you need to cut back a little bit But if you're not serving the church at all We have plenty for you to do So please let us know if if you'd like to serve In summary giving our all for Christ means to have a balance Concern for truth a balance concern for experience and a balance concern for action Basically to love the Lord with our head our heart and our hands You see Jesus was the only person though who balanced his responsibilities perfectly But he's our example and we are to follow him In fact as we strive to become more like him We must remember that because of sins influence on our lives will never be able to balance these things perfectly But here's the good news But with this help and bias grace we can do things great for him. We can accomplish great things For him my friends and family as you pursue living a holy life Don't get too discouraged when you fall and pray that God will give you the strength and courage To do what is right and to do what is pleasing in his sight Let's pray Lord Jesus I pray that we will love you with all of our heart with all of our mind with all of our soul and with all of our strength And I pray Lord that we will love our neighbor as ourselves and I pray that we'll learn to balance our life well for truth For experience for action. I pray that we will be open for your spirit to work in our lives I pray that we will serve you with all of our might I pray that we will love you and learn more about you with our mind And Lord I pray that we will love our neighbors ourselves Love our employees and employers at work love our family members who are hard to love I pray that we will love the government our officials who can be hard to love I pray that we will just have a heart for the unreached people groups of the world And may we also pray for the church and love each other as a family or go with us now in Jesus name amen