Loving God

This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Wintersprings, Florida, where Dr. Pete Alanson is our senior pastor. Today's sermon is part 7 in the offensive Christianity series. This message is titled Loving God, How to Live in God's Land. It's taken from Deuteronomy 6 verses 4 through 9. And now here's Pete with today's message. Our great God, what a joyful thing it is to come into your presence this morning and to worship you, to focus upon you. And Lord, as we come before you today, we remember that you are triune father, son, and Holy Spirit. There's only one God in three persons. Lord, you are greater than our comprehension. You're greater in all of your attributes than we even know, because you are a God who is all powerful. A God who is the Creator, a God who is the Redeemer, a God who gets into the very depths of our hearts. And teaches us your word and changes our lives, you transform us because of who you are. And this morning we worship you, we glorify you. And Lord, because of that, it is our desire to love you because you first love us. And so we have sung this song, we have made a declaration of our intention, Lord, to love you with everything in our being. And yet Lord, we struggle with that. Sometimes we doubt you, sometimes we question you, father, sometimes we just out and out disobey you. And so right now we come at the beginning of this new week, and we put it all on the table and we confess our sins. We tell you the truth that you already know. And that is that though this is the desire of our hearts to love you in this way, we don't always. But we want to. And so as we start this new week, hear our confession, hear Lord that we desire deeply to follow you, to know your commandments because we know they come from your love. Father, we're needy. And so sometimes we disobey you because we hurt so bad, we have relationships that we desperately want to see reconciled and go deeper. We want to forgive, but we can't. It seems, Lord, it's so hard. We've lost jobs, we've lost loved ones, you know our hearts. And here we are in this place, Lord, and we need you to draw us back to remember who you are as the God of love. And remind us that you loved us first. And then Lord, we need you to remind us who we are, the people who are the recipients of your grace. And be able to live another week before your face in this land. And so now we pray, Lord, as you have received our worship, we pray that you teach our minds. Get it into our hearts and refresh us for another week of walking before you. We pray you'd use the one who is finite and limited to communicate your infinite truth. Be the teacher. And may we receive your truths now. We pray in Jesus' holy name. Amen. Well, I'm glad you're here. If you have your Bibles, you could, if you desire, take them and turn to Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy, chapter 6, as we continue our study in the Word of God. Now, those of you who may have been on vacation and are back with us or new for the first time, need to know, we've been pursuing all year this theme of truth. Truth is what sets us free. You shall know the truth. The Bible says, the truth will set you free. And so we've been studying truth. And that's a powerful thing. Sam Goldman, who you might know from Hollywood fame, Goldman, Metro mayor, all those guys. Sam Goldman said this. I don't want any yes men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth, even if it costs them their job. I like that. You know, I like the truth, and I want to hear it even though it's hard to get at. Most of us, however, won't tell the truth if it'll cost us our job or create pain in our lives. But the truth, really, even though it's hard to get out is what sets us free. You might tell the truth, lose your job, and get in a better job. You might tell the truth in a relationship, straighten out some things, that needed to be strained out a long time ago, and it would be better. Truth sets us free. Martin Luther said this. Peace, if possible, truth at any rate. And that's where we are as Christians. We know the truth is the powerful thing for our lives. So the truth, it underlies this series that we've been in, and it's called Offensive Christianity. We've been looking at, okay, I'll be honest, my favorite verses in the Bible, starting in the Old Testament, but we've been looking at these verses for so long because, and we're going to look at them all summer, if you want to know where we're going, because these verses set us free. They don't make us more offensive as people, that comes natural, but they will get us on the offensive. They will keep us moving in life. There are so many issues that slow us down. Trials, difficulties, physical problems. They slow us down, they get us... Gosh, you guys find out things in your life that really frustrates you, and you say it's hard to follow you, Jesus, right now. But the truths of God's Word get us back on the offensive. I don't know about you. There are true, whoever came up with this is very profound. There are two types of people. I like reductionistic statements like that. There are only two types of people, springers and sleepers. You've heard me share about, in the morning, when you wake up, you're either a springer, means you're awake, and you're alive, and you can talk about nuclear physics and you do, you talk about everything. Usually, if you're a springer, you're married to a sleeper who thinks you're the Antichrist because you're talking at that morning and the hour, and they say things like, God isn't even awake yet. Why are you talking? What is this stuff? And they want to kill you in Jesus' name because you're disturbing their life. I'm like that. I wake up every day, wondering if there's a God. Wondering why, until I have the first holy cups of coffee and then I realize there is the Holy God of the universe, and life gets better. But there's so many, I wake up and I say, not another day. And what gets me on the offensive is God's Word. That's why I'm really addicted to God's Word in the morning. I have to have it because otherwise, I'd be in the antirthouse and I'd be meaner than I am and harder to get along with. And you would too. We need God's Word because it renews our hearts and our minds. It gets us back on the offensive and that's why we've been studying this and you've been memorizing all of these verses, right? Yeah, right. Do it. Steve's here, you'll give you three free sins and I might give you one more. Alright, do it. If you memorize these verses and get a note from your notary and your mother and turn it into us, our text today is Deuteronomy 6. And it's about how to live in God's land. This is a verse that gets us on the offensive and says, this is how you live in God's land. The background of this is very simple. Moses had this scripture given to him as the Israelites were about ready to go into the promised land. They had been brought out of slavery in Egypt and they had been led 40 years by Moses in the wilderness and now they're about ready to go under Joshua's leadership into the promised land to take it over because that land would then become God's land where God's people would live and God's people would live in a way that showed the rest of the world who the true God was. So these are the words that recapitulate or remind the Israelites of the law of God for how they're to live in the land, in the land. And these scriptures verses are the Shema Yisrael said twice daily by pious Jews, they would repeat it in the morning, repeat it in the afternoon. You sang it, now I'm going to read it. Here it is. Deuteronomy 6. Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I'm commanding you today shall be on your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house. And when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand. And they shall be as frontils on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. These, this is a powerful passage. And it reminds the Israelites how to live in the land of God. And by the way, Israel went to live in the land of Canaan that became known as the land of Israel. Later it's been called the land of Palestine. But it's God's land, it's God's people's land. But is God only God in Israel and Palestine? Is that the only place he's the God? No, he is the sovereign God of heaven and earth. Psalm 241, a Psalm of David starts out this way. The earth is the Lord's and all it contains. The world and those who dwell in it, Isaiah 661, thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. And then where then is a house you could build for me and where is a place that I may rest. So when God was leading Israel into the land, he is not saying that's the only place where I dwell. God is the God of Israel. In Israel, God is, do you believe it? God actually lives here in central Florida. Everybody thinks God lives in North Carolina. He's got a summer house up there but he doesn't live there. I want you to know. He lives here too and he lives in Miami and he lives in California. He lives there. Oregon, he lives everywhere because it's completely his land. Israel, Jews were formed into a nation and they were Israel, the new name given to Jacob. But you are Israel too. You are the people of God through faith and Christ. You are a part of the Israel of God. Is God finished with the Jews? No! Read Romans 11. He's going to bring a huge number of Jews into the church at the end times. And there's a lot of that going on already. But you're the Israel of God and he is your God in this land. How do you live before him? Because the Shema Israel was not just for Israel, it's for you, it's for me. Did you catch the principal? The big way. How is it that we live in the land before God? Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God. That's how you live in the land. That's what he says to Israel. Before you go in the land, I want you to know that the way you live, here's a Latin phrase for you, you can impress your friends. How can you live before the face of God wherever you are? Because God is here because God lives wherever we go. How do you live, Koram, before the face of God by loving him? Isn't it nice that he says to the Israelites before they go into Israel? Love me. He doesn't say, okay, here's the 15,000 rules and regulations you've got to follow. He says, love me. Here's the truth. If you act toward God out of the primary principle of love, you'll always do the right thing. If you act toward other people out of love, you'll do the right thing. Because love is the one motivator that if truly operative in our life, is that which regulates all of our behavior. So you say, but wait a minute, you read a little further and he's going to give all these commands in Deuteronomy, I know, I know. But the primary principle, the overlying principle is love me. Now, what would it be like if I said you are commanded to love me? He said, it'll be very cold and hot, blaze before. Because when I say that, you immediately want to not love me because you all have authority problems. And so do I. Someone says, you got to do this to me. Immediately, our thought is, oh, man, don't say that. That was a wrong thing to say. Say something like this. If you like, you could show favorable attitudes toward me. You could be nice to me. I'd like that a little bit. But don't you have to love me. That's what God said. And so this is an interesting and very important principle for us to look at. He doesn't give them rules. He gives them the command to love. Steve often says, I can't be a saint but I could be a martyr if they kill me fast enough. You know, I can't be a saint. I can't keep the rules. Can you? If your idea of a relationship with God is keeping all the rules, can you keep them all? It isn't going to happen. God knows it. So he says to the people that he's rescued, love me. Now, we got to explain that. I have two points to explain that. He gives the reason to love God. First of all, it's found in verse four. Here, oh, Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. You can miss it. Oh, it's so easy to miss it. The Lord is our God. In other words, the Lord Yahweh in the original language is our Elohim. The Lord Yahweh is our God. And that's the first aspect of motivation to love God. He's our God. And what Moses is saying is so cool. He's saying God came after us first. He's our God. In that little phrase, we miss it. The Lord is our God. Moses is not saying, hey, we came up with the idea of God. We created God in our image. We made this God. So therefore, he is our God. No. Nor is he saying God is our leprechaun who's supposed to lead us to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Now, we came up with it. No, he's saying God is our God in the sense that he came after us first. He pursued us first. They weren't looking for a God. Neither were you. God is your God in the same sense that he's the God of the Israelites. He came after you first. God is so intensely relational that he comes out. And by the way, that's grace simply. Grace is love which motivates giving to the undeserving. Grace is God's love which motivates giving to the undeserving. And that's what this is. He called you and me into his family even though we don't bring very much. Neither did Israel. And the truth is you will never love God until you first recognize that he loved you first. You'll never worship with abandon. And this is a Presbyterian church. I know there is some decorum here. And some of you say, why don't you clap more here? You can clap all you want. I just can't clap, dance, sing, and read the words at the same time. You can do that here. That's all right. But you will never worship God with abandon until you know he loved you first. You will never apply the words of the law of God's word to your life until you know that he loves you first. He just won't. That's why Christianity is not rule based because we'll never apply it. I tell my kids to do stuff and they look at me. They look down on me now. And they're not going to do it unless they love me because love is the primary motivator for all of our behavior. You know, all of the, I was thinking about this as we all of the big debates between Armenianism, Armenian. I can't even say Armenians and Calvinists. And by the way, this is a Presbyterian church where Calvinists, we have some Methodists and some Baptists and some Lutherans. You don't have to be a Presbyterian to go to heaven. Why take a chance, however. And we have the truth. Well, maybe when I get home, we'll find out that some aspects of the Westminster Confession of Faith is not exactly accurate, but I think it is. And all of the debates between all of those theological positions really boil down to this. Here it is. You got it? You ready? This is a theological principle that underlies the difference between we who hold the truth and the others who hold less than the truth. I'll repent later. Here it is. Here it is. Who took the first step? That's what all boils down. Who took the first step? Presbyterians say we were too sinful to take the first step toward God. And everybody else says we weren't all that bad and we took the first step. Now that's a bit reductionistic, but it's true. And it is real. They had it. It's trying. The Lord is our God. He came after us. He's our Father. He's our Creator. When you take communion today, take it remembering that he thought about you before you even came into existence. Remember that Jesus did not come to die on the cross because somebody prayed, O Lord, send a Savior. Nobody asked for a Savior. He came first. He initiated the whole process. First John 4, 10 says this, in this is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and said his son to be the propitiation for our sins. We love in verse 19 because he first loved us. And so that's the powerful part of this motivation. God says you will love me. But remember I first loved you. Remember I came to you first. The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. That's the great statement of monotheism. That there is only one God and that there is only one God. And that's why Jesus said I and the Father are one. Now if you understand the Trinity, if you understand the Trinity, you probably ought to be up here preaching. I don't understand it completely, but what I do know is the Bible teaches that God is one in three persons. Father, son and Holy Spirit. And this is reflected by what Jesus said. In John 10, 30, I and the Father are one. In John 10, 31 it says, the Jews took up stones to stone him. Jesus said, I showed you many good works from the Father. For which of them are you stoning me? The Jews answered him for a good work. We do not stone you but for blasphemy because you being a man make yourself out to be God. And then Jesus said this, if I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me. But if I do them, though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I and the Father, that's a mystery. But Jesus came out of the tomb to back up the statements like that that he made that he and the Father wouldn't so in this great statement, the motivation to love God is to remember that he is our God that he came after us first and secondly to remember that he is the one unique, creative, loving, outrageous God who loved you and knew you and has a plan for you. And he's good. You know, there's a great application here about God and that is this. You don't have to convince anybody of the true God. Chris out of way in the announcements tried to steal you out of here into his Sunday school class this morning. I'm deeply resentful of that. No, you got to go. He's a good teacher. But definitely go to the class on the Da Vinci code. Have you read that book? Have you listened to the tape? Everybody has. I got onto a plane once and five people had the book. I just finished it. And I wanted to stop and evangelize everybody, but it was just wasn't appropriate. By the way, you know, if you want a good novel, read the book. The only problem I have with the book. Well, two problems. One is that he's getting all the money and this church isn't. That's a problem for me. The other problem is it's such bad history, but it's a great novel. But listen, but one thing you ought not to do is panic. I hope you're not upset that it's so popular. And I hope you're not saying this is terrible. The kingdom of heaven is going to crumble because because the Da Vinci code says that Jesus got married and had kids and they were the kings and queens of France. Oh, my gosh. You remember when the last temptation of Christ came out, if you're old enough and everybody thought, oh, the church is going to fold up. It didn't. And it won't. You don't have to convince anybody of the true God. This is the great. If you get this, you guys will not be stopped. Your job is not to convince people of the one true God. Your your job is simply to tell people about the one true God. You don't change anybody's mind or everybody's heart. And there are anything like the Da Vinci code that's going to bring down Christianity. You don't stop the risen Lord of the universe. So, so it's cool. I mean, listen, as someone said, people look for God like a thief looks for a policeman. Like I'm looking for a traffic cop. You know, no, the reality is most people are not looking for God. I wish more were. But God is the one who makes himself. You know, why do we love him as he calls us to because he's our God. He came after us and because he's the only true God. Be bold about that. Tell people about that. There's only one God and Jesus fully represents him. But you don't have to change their hearts. Just tell the truth. He says, you should focus on all these words and all these words. I'm going to give you bind them on your heart. Teach them to your children. Be diligent to your son. Teach them to your sons. When you sit down, when you rise up, he says, you shall love the Lord your God. This is how this is how you do it. With all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind. Did you notice in the song, Jeff, let us into this morning. There's a bit of heresy there because he added a fourth word. You didn't even catch it. He put mind, mind, good. The song puts in the word mind because in the New Testament puts in the word mind. But really, the interpretation, what he's trying to say is that we are to love God with all that we are, with all that we are, with every aspect of our being, with our minds, with our emotions, with our actions. That is true love. Love the Lord your God in that way. And here's the question. Do we do that? And you say, oh, no, here comes the guilt part of the sermon. Here he is. He's going to put the screws down and we're all going to feel that because none of us love God with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, but that's what God says. I want that's how I want to be loved. Have you read Jerry Chapman's book, the five love languages? If you haven't read it, read it. It's a great book. He starts off talking about love as our culture interprets it. Love in our culture is most often lost. But secondarily, in our culture, love is that emotional feeling of obsession and attraction where you meet somebody and they make you feel like a billion dollars. And when you're around them, your head starts spinning and you think, I am finally in love. Jerry Chapman started out as an anthropologist and he says, that's not love. That's what God does to trick us into marriage. Well, sort of, that's what he says. He says, that's not love. That's something else. And we get married. And then within two years we go, oh, no, I have done something hugely wrong here. Made the biggest mistake of my life. And then, and then you have options at that point. One option is to run away. I'm out of here because the feeling is gone. Love is gone. I don't love anymore. He says that was never love. True love is like God's love for us. You think God ever had an obsession for you? He said, because I just can't stand to be without Pete. I know to say it is just like heresy. It's just like a silly, you know. I just can't stand and finally God says after a while, you know, that was a mistake. That was a huge mistake. You can't even wake up happy to preach on Sunday morning, you know. No, God doesn't love that. God says, you know, with my mind, I want him. I choose him. With my heart, I have feelings toward him. With my actions, I give gifts to him. You see, that's love. And in marriage, you have that point where you realize that you're either going to keep looking from successive person for that feeling of obsession, which isn't love anyway. Or you can begin to pursue God's kind of love. He has for us, which is an intentional. It's a mental. It's an emotional kind of love. It's a love, a love that sticks. And he says, I'm going to find out what my kids, my wife, my husband's love language is. And I'm going to love them in the way they want to be loved. And God says to us, listen, you love me with all your heart, soul and mind, but always, but it takes work to love me. But remember, I love you first. And I'm going to give you all these commands to focus on. Remember, these commands aren't because I'm trying to make your life miserable because I love you. One day, I went into my daughter's room and she had this little thing on her desk. It said, blame it on your dad. I found her. I said, Jess, it was this blame on your dad thing. I said, where'd you get it? She said Sunday school. I said, I got to find Charlie. What's going on? What are they teaching the kids these days? And she said, no, no, it's really cool. When I'm out with my friends and they're telling me to do something that I shouldn't do, I can always blame it on my dad. I said, you know, my dad didn't want me to do that. I can't do it. My dad said, no, I said, that's great. You blame anything like that on me. That's cool. Not the other stuff. And God says, I'm going to give you all these commands. And if the world says, you're nuts, why don't you do this? You blame it on your dad. You say, drink yourself crazy. He said, I don't know because my dad says, no, it's not good for me. You said, you know, you ought to not tell the truth all the time. No, because my dad says, I'm going to blame it on my dad because we're in a covenant relationship with him. So Jesus, Jesus takes the shamai, yes, for I own, says, that's for us too, because we live in God's land. And he says to us, love the Lord you got. That's the only way to live. Guys, this is for you too. It's not just for females. Love God. But it is, isn't it a manly kind of love, an intentional kind of love where you engage your heart, your mind, your soul, everything you are to love. That's real love. That's the kind of love that God has for you. So he sent his son. He only came because of that kind of love, not the love that our culture says. As you take communion today, if you're not a Christian, don't take it. Take Jesus. We invite you to him to the only one who will really love you for yourself, who will really pour into you intentionally for your whole life, who will pursue you for your whole life, no matter what you do and how you mess it up. You're never going to say, act, sit, I'm done with you. You take communion today. And as you take the bread and as you take the cup, you remember that he came not because he had to because he wanted to and he pursues you and you can trust him. But because he came first, the only way to love him, the only way to live in the land is out of love. Did you take communion? You take his love deeply to heart. Let's praise our elders come forward. Thank you that when you brought us to yourself as Christians, you didn't just lay out the whole set of rules. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that when somebody asked you what's the greatest command you said love. And so father today, we come to you as your children about ready to take this sacrament which is all about your real, real love for us. Thank you that you didn't just have a passing obsession for us. Thank you that you poured your heart and your mind and your decisions and your actions and your emotions into us and you still do. And now as we take the bread, Lord Jesus, I pray that you would speak to us through this sacrament as we unite it with faith as we take it in faith. And I pray that you would remind us that you started the process. You pursued us first and you still pursue us today. May we never ever get tired of hearing that. Thank you that you pour all of who you are into our little lives. Thank you for taking human flesh, for being our substitute, for bearing the pain and the shame that we could have the love and the power and the truth of God. May us set us free now as we give you honor and praise your holy name. Willow Creek Church is associated with the Presbyterian Church in America. Our website is www.willowcreekchurch.org and our phone number is 407-699-8211.