Loving the Lord

Jesus tells us three times in the Gospels that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. But what does that mean? How does that look? In today's episode I talk about how Jesus Himself showed us how to fulfill that commandment in the example He gives us. And though we won't do it perfectly like He did, He has given us everything we need to love the Lord with all we are and how that then shapes how we love others as we love ourselves.

Scriptures talked about today (check out BibleHub.com!): 

• Matthew 22:35-40
• 2 Corinthians 4:6
• Hebrews 1
• Matthew 4
• Luke 4
• Mark 12:28-34
• Luke 10:25-29
• Matthew 11:28-30
• Luke 2:41-52
• Philippians 2:1-11
• John 12:23-28
• Luke 22:39-44
• John 14:10 (I said John 5 but it’s John 14!)
• 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
• Micah 6:8
• Jude 20-22

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Questions? Comments? Email me at: carrie@ps8116.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

Hey everyone, how are you doing today? I hope you are doing alright. Welcome to episode two of Honey from the Rock. I am so glad you're here with me today. And before I jump into the topic of today's episode, I just want to take a moment and say thank you. There were so many people who messaged me or emailed me, um, contacted me on Facebook, Instagram, encouraging me in what I'm doing with this podcast. And while we often need to step out in obedience to the Lord alone, the faithfulness of Jesus in the people that he gives us to encourage us and be excited about the things that we're doing, it touched my heart. I have, I really have for a words person, I really have no words uh for how overwhelmed I was by the kindness of my community and the just the encouragement. It it touched my heart in such a deep way and encouraged me to keep going. And so I just want to say thank you. Um, and in that vein, encourage you. If there are things that you know Jesus is calling you to do, things that He has put on your heart. I just keep saying as I talk to people about this podcast, it's better to be obedient and and do it scared than to stay in comfort and disobedience and and sometimes wonder what would have happened if you had just done what the Lord had called you to do for a lot of reasons. Um, so again, just thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am a blessed woman in the truest meaning of that word with the people that Jesus has put in my life to encourage me and to lift me up in prayer. And uh, it just meant a lot. So speaking of community, um, this episode today and the next few episodes come out of things that I am seeing online and also things that the Lord has really made um clear to me in my life in different seasons, um uh in regards to love. So love is a word that we love to talk about a lot. Um, it's also a word I think that has lost a lot of its true meaning, right? Because we we talk about love um in that deep sense, love for the Lord, love for one another. Um, but we also then toss it around like, oh my gosh, I love my brand new sandals, or I love this tiny adorable otter on Instagram, which you know, that was definitely me. I love otters, they're adorable. Uh, but I just in thinking about the Christian walk, thinking about discipleship, sitting with the Lord, what is what does love really mean? And obviously, first and foremost, we have the very definition of love in the triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, right? In in the personification, in the incarnate God coming to be man in the person of Jesus Christ, his crucifixion, his gospel. But one thing I've been seeing, especially in the last month, and it's been a theme off and on, I see a lot of people talking about how we need to love one another, which we absolutely do. It is the second commandment, how we need to treat one another with dignity and respect and not scream at each other online. Yes, and amen. Absolutely. But the more that I've looked at it and just seen so many conversations and so much arguing and and just so much disunity, um, the thing that I have that has really hit me is I don't necessarily think that we have a love problem for one another, first and foremost. I think the way that we see people interact online, the way that we are watching how we treat one another unfold is not necessarily first and foremost our lack of love for one another, but it is our lack of love for the Lord. And I'm talking specifically in the Christian community and and know that as I am talking about this, first and foremost, it is something that Jesus has convicted me about in my own life. And that our love for one another actually has to grow out of our love for the Lord. And that's what I want to talk about today is the first commandment. Because if we don't have a not even a grasp, but but if that first commandment, which Jesus says is the first and foremost commandment, if that is not the absolute bedrock foundation of our life, then nothing else works right. If our love for the Lord is not paramount in our life, if we aren't seeking to give him everything, heart, mind, soul, and strength, then everything else will lack in our life. Because Jesus, the Father, the Holy Spirit, they have to be first and foremost everything to us. And our our love, our love for them has to be the foundation of everything that we do. Because Jesus says the second commandment is like to the first, but it's not the first. Jesus says that the first commandment is is first and foremost, it is paramount. And and so today that's what I want to talk about. Because in loving Jesus, in this commandment that he has given us, Jesus never asks us to do anything that he hasn't first done, that he hasn't first completely fulfilled in the perfection of his person. And so we're going to examine the first commandment. Um, if you are listening along with me, I would encourage you to get out your Bible as you listen. I'll have all of the scriptures listed in the show notes. Uh, but to examine things in the word that show us not only what does Jesus mean when he tells us that we need to love him, heart, mind, soul, and strength, but how did he model that? How did Jesus himself show us what it means to love the Lord our God with everything that is in us? So let's jump right in. I want to read Matthew 22, 35 through 40, and I am reading out of the ESV. But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. Teacher, what is the great commandment in the law? And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Upon these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets. So here Jesus says heart, soul, mind. In I believe Mark 12, he says, heart, mind, soul, and strength. And I believe he also references that in Luke 10. So what does it mean to love the Lord? I mean, he says heart, mind, soul, and strength. What does this mean? And how did Jesus show us how to live this out, right? Because like I said earlier, Jesus never commands us to do something that he hasn't already done. He has perfectly walked this life before us. And everything that he commands us to do outside of repenting, because Jesus never had to repent because he is perfect. Uh, he has shown us. He has shown us, oh man, what is good, right? And what the Lord requires of us. And so again, we need to examine Jesus. He is our, he's not only our example, but he is the one who is supposed to be resurrecting in us, and he is the one to whom our image must be taken away, right? This human, fleshy thing that we live in, and he is who we are conformed into, right? We are to be conformed into the image of Jesus, as Paul tells us in Romans. So, how did how did Jesus live out loving the Father, loving the Holy Spirit with with everything, with his own heart, mind, soul, and strength? So, a couple of things to think about before we get into those individual spheres. Jesus's first act of love was his submission to the Father and coming down to earth, right? The incarnate God, the Word who was with the Father, who through him all things were made. There was nothing with him, within him, like he has made everything, right? I was about to really poorly paraphrase John 1. But Jesus is the word, and in him all things were made. He is the expression, right, of the Father. Paul has such beautiful things to say about Jesus being the glory, the glory of the Father in the face of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1. Read Hebrews 1 and just and and marvel at the expression, the very nature of Jesus as the Father. And that when the Father said, I need to redeem my creation, I need to redeem people, there needs to be a way for people, the the humans that I have created in my own image to be reconciled to me. Son, will will you be the perfect sacrifice? And Jesus says, Yes. First and foremost, because he loves the father, and then because he loves us. So he came down. He came down and he became man. And as he became man, he loved the father in every single step that he took on earth. Consider just a few of these ways that he loved the father. He loved the father in resistance to temptation. We see that in Matthew 4 and Luke 4, right? He stood against the lies of the devil. And not only did he stand against them, he refuted them and overcame them by the word of the Lord, by the very word that he is, and said, I'm not going to worship anybody else but the Lord. I'm not going to tempt my God. I'm not going to try and sustain myself. I'm going to live completely dependent on my Father, knowing that He will provide for me every single need. He spoke what the Father gave him, preaching and embodying the gospel, right? In John 5, Jesus says, The word that you hear me speak is not my word. It is the word of my father. And in obedience, I preach his word. I preach, not only do I preach his gospel, but I live it. I'm the living embodiment of what the Father wants us to see about his character. He drank the cup to its full dregs, right? We see that in the garden before his crucifixion. He asked the Father to take the cup and then says, Not my will, Lord, but yours, and drinks it fully. His submission to death on the cross and the glory and joy of resurrection, those two things work together. There is no resurrection, there's no joy, there's no hope without the cross. The cross being so necessary because of our sin and because of what we are, and Jesus willingly laying down his life for us. So when Jesus calls us to love him, to love the Father, to love the Holy Spirit with heart, mind, soul, and strength, what does that really mean? And how does Jesus show us that? Well, first and foremost, the basis of love, the basis of love in Scripture, love for the Lord is an active, willing submission to the Lord. And that is what Jesus shows us. Jesus did nothing out of his own interest. He was always working and walking and worshiping for the glory of the Father. That was his whole focus. And so when he tells us to love him with all of our heart, what does that mean? And what is the heart? The heart is the seat of our emotions, right? It's it's the scripture talks about the heart. Um, a lot of times in the Hebrew, especially, you'll see heart translated as the kidneys, um, which basically just means talking about the the deepest, most inner part of you. It is where the seat of your affections and and all of those things live in you. And so, what do we know about the heart of Jesus? Well, in the Gospels we see so much about the heart of Jesus, but Jesus actually tells us in Matthew 11, when he tells us to come to him because we're weary and we're heavy laden and that he wants to give us rest, to take his yoke upon us, he tells us he is meek and lowly in heart. What does that mean? What is the what do we need to know about the heart of Jesus being meek and lowly? And a lot of times, you know, people think about like meek and lowly, and you know, it's kind of like this sad sack walking around, you know, I'm just so humble, you know. It's like, and and nobody ever believes that. And it and Jesus wasn't walking around like that. I mean, you look you read the gospel, and Jesus was he was kind and he was gentle, but he was also strong, and he was fierce in in a lot of ways, and and standing up for the justice of the Lord and fighting for those who were vulnerable and and healing those who were oppressed by the devil, all of those things. And so Jesus wasn't walking around like, look at me, I'm so meek, I'm so lowly. So let's consider what this word actually means in the Greek. So again, I went to BibleHub.com. Again, that's not an advertisement, it's literally my favorite, favorite uh resource online. And the helps word study on Bible Hub, when talking about this word lowly, it means God reliance, not self-reliance. Jesus loved the father by being completely reliant on him in everything by the power of the Holy Spirit. He followed his leading in every step. I mean, you think about Jesus taking time away, he would go on the mountain to pray with the father, um, healing, all of it. He was completely dependent on the father. And then um the topical lexicon also says, so the the Greek number for this word is 5011. And and you say it tapinos. Oh, if there are any Greek scholars listening to this or anybody who's taken Greek, please, please just forgive me. Please have please have some grace for my terrible pronunciation. But this word, it's it's the biblical virtue of humility, it's the inner loneliness that gladly submits to God's sovereign rule and seeks the welfare of others. So again, see this word that Jesus uses to describe his heart. It's not only submission to God's sovereign rule, but it's how we love others. This is the kind, this is the heart of Jesus, and this is the heart that's supposed to be in us. First, loving the Lord. So it's far from promoting self-deprecation. Scripture presents Tapanos as the proper self-assessment of creatures before their creator and redeemer. The term consistently stands in antithesis to pride, locating the heart attitude that the res that receives grace finds exaltation in God's timing and embodies the mind of Christ. And obviously, you know, Jesus was not created. He's the um, he is the only begotten son of the Father. Um, but he he walk in in his humanity, he walked in this lowliness of heart. And so to love the Lord with our heart, Jesus shows us it is a it is a submission. It is a it's a face in the ground submission to the Lord for us. Um, it's it's a humility that cuts away our pride and says, Lord, I love you. I give you my heart. I want you to have all of my affection, and I want you to rightly order it. That's what Jesus shows us in in being meek and lonely in heart and loving the Lord with all our heart. Lord, I want you to have your complete and total way. And I will love you no matter what you choose to do. So then let's consider the mind of Jesus. Ah, when I was working through this, Lord, where in the gospel do we see your mind active? Which obviously through the whole gospel we see so many things, but just really wanting to tackle how Jesus loved the Father with all of his mind. And the Lord led me to Luke 2, where Jesus, you know, Mary and Joseph and Jesus, and probably his brothers and sisters at that point, because Jesus was 12. They go to Jerusalem for Passover, and then everybody kind of gathers together and goes on their merry way, and all of a sudden Mary and Joseph realize that Jesus is not with them. And, you know, we read in Luke 2 that that Mary and Joseph, a, searched for him for three days, and B, searched for him with great distress, which can you imagine? I mean, literally freaking out because we've lost the son of God. Okay, great. You know, we've been given this divine commandment to take care of the son of God, and we've lost him. We don't know where he is. So I'm sure they were freaking out. But they find Jesus in the temple, not only listening and asking questions, but also responding. And when, you know, they go to him and they say, Son, we've been looking for you everywhere. Jesus says to them, Do you not know that I would be about my father's business? Didn't you know where I would be? And I love that because it shows us that even at that age, even at that age, Jesus was completely preoccupied in his mind with the will of the Father. And that is how we love the Lord with our mind. What is our preoccupation? What do we think about? What do we set our mind on when things happen? Um, or when we're just living our life, is is is our mind completely focused on the Lord and preoccupied with what he is doing? And not in that, you know, people talk about you're so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good. You know, not in a religious, fake way, but but first and foremost, in anything we do, Lord Jesus, what are you saying? Where are you with this? Lord, help me to follow your leading. Uh, Father, I want to know what you're doing. Holy Spirit, I need you to help me think these things through biblically, scripturally, so that I am not, I don't fall into temptation. I don't fall into the trap of the devil. Uh, I don't fall into my own, my own thoughts, my own pathways of reason. And as I was studying it further, um, Philippians 2 came to mind. And I want to read it. It's a long chunk of scripture, but I want to read it because I think it's so important. Because Paul really shows us in his instruction to the Philippian church what the mind of Jesus really is. So, Philippians 2, we start at the beginning of the chapter, and again, this is this is from the ESV. Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation of love, any fellowship of the spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, being united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude within you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as he already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a bond servant, and being born in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, the death of a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So in this chunk of scripture here, Paul shows us being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, and then he shows us the very mind of Jesus. He already existed as God, but he did not consider. How do we consider things? We consider them in our mind. Jesus didn't actively say, you know what, Lord, I'm the Son of God and I'll do this. But when I go down there, I want to be in the highest position. I want to be wealthy, give me power, give me resources, give me all the things that I need temporally to fulfill what you're calling me to do. No, no, he said, I will become a man in all of his weakness, in all of his frailty, whereas dust. And Jesus said, I will become like them fully. And Lord, I will not take my equality with you here and now down in there. I will, I will become fully a man. And as your son, Father, I will, I will walk out what you call me to do. This is the mind of Jesus. Again, full submission, servanthood. This is how we love the Lord with our mind. One of my favorite quotes is by A. W. Tozier, and it says, What comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. And it's so true because where the mind goes is is really where where the rest of us go, right? It's why Paul talks about consistently be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12, be transformed by the spirit of your mind, Ephesians 4. As our mind, as we reason, as we as we logically think things through, or illogically sometimes, so the rest of life goes. And Jesus shows us that he loved the Father with his whole mind in complete and total submission to the Lord by not considering his status of God, his equality with the Father, something to be grasped, but willingly took on the form of a spirit. Or as a servant, excuse me. So then loving the Lord with all of our soul. Jesus in John 12 talks about the fact that as he he's he's done his triumphal entry, he is um in the temple. Some Greek men want to talk to him. They've talked to Andrew, they've talked to Philip. And instead of directly answering or talking directly to this Greek men, it Jesus goes into something where people are like, What is he talking about? He starts to talk about a grain of wheat falling to the ground. And if it doesn't get buried, it can't bear fruit. But I want to kind of talk about that portion of scripture in reverse order. Because Jesus says, Now my soul has become troubled, and what am I to say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. And then a voice came out of heaven. I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. And Jesus says this after he has talked about that grain of wheat falling to the ground. After he talks about literally using, again, a picture from nature, which is so amazing. This thing needs to be planted into the ground. It needs to die and it needs to be cracked open because in death it's cracked open and that's how it bears bears fruit. And then he says, the one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it. We hate our lives by loving the Lord with all of our soul. The soul of Jesus was troubled. It was troubled because he he knew what was coming. But again, in an act of submission, this is the climax, right? He's walking towards the climax of everything that the Father has called him to. And he has laid down everything. So what does that look like for us? Our soul is the seed of our personality. It's everything that we are. And to lay down everything for the Lord, right? It's it's it's a tension. There's there's two kinds of tension, right? Well, there's a lot of kinds of tension, but for this purpose, the tension that I'm talking about is the now and not yet, right? A lot of theologians and and seminary professors talk about the now and the now and not yet, that tension there. And and how how I kind of thought through it. And I was actually talking with my mom about this, and she said this, and I just, it was so good. When you're loving Jesus with all of your soul, there's tension between the two kingdoms, right? Because we're here on earth, Jesus is in heaven, and there's that tension between what is spiritual and what is earthly. And so there are times where we want what is eternal, right? We want the fruit of the spirit, which is eternal. We want, we want the things that the Lord promises us. But we're trapped here on earth and and we yearn, you know. Paul says, I would rather go and be with the Lord, but I know I need to stay here and continue to teach you and to continue to shepherd you and and and instruct you in the Lord's way. But then there's also times when we desire what's here. We want what's earthly, we crave earthly things. And the Lord wants to sanctify those desires so that then they become eternal. He wants to sanctify what we want so that we can see eternity, we can see the purpose of these things. And there's tension, and sometimes we also don't want our desires to be sanctified. But to love the Lord with all of our soul as Jesus did means that in the hour of greatest distress, and even when it's not the hour of greatest distress, it is it is entrusting the very core of who we are to Jesus, willingly laying it down, willingly saying, Lord, I am willing to be buried with you by baptism. I am willing to pick up my cross so that everything about me is crucified, Lord. The every gift you've given me, every everything, Lord, I lay it down. I lay it down and I take my hands off it, Lord, so that you can pick it up and you can make it what you want it to be. You can put it to good good use. You can put it to your perfect eternal use. You can make it true and right and good. And then finally, to love the Lord with all of our strength. The most powerful example of this, I think, yes, is the crucifixion. Jesus is completely um submitted to the Lord in his body to be crucified. But the step before that is when Jesus is in the garden. He is in the garden and he is resisting sin. He is resisting temptation, and he resists it to the point where he sweats great drops of blood. And that's why Hebrews tells us that we've not yet resisted sin unto blood. We haven't done that. But Jesus has. I can't even imagine, and I don't want to add to or take away from scripture, but I can't even imagine what Jesus experienced in that garden to resist sin and temptation for us to the point where and and if you read it in the Greek, read it in the Greek. Go and do a word study in the Greek. The Lord's given us so many tools. It's not just tiny rivulets of blood going down his face. It's clots. It's clots of blood. This is what Jesus has done. This is how he loved the Lord with all of his strength. And we will never resist sin unto blood, right? We are human and we are frail and we are sin in our nature. But we can set our forehead, we can set our mind and our heart and our soul that this body that he has given us, whatever body he's given us, we can love the Lord with the body that he's given us, with the strength that he's given us, to surrender it in weakness and to determine that this body, this temple will be his. Surrender ourselves to the Lord to have his strength. What Jesus did in the garden is why he could later say to Paul, My strength is made perfect in weakness. Glory in this. Glory in your weakness, because my strength is made perfect. And how did Jesus know? Because in his resistance of sin unto blood, the Father's strength was made perfect in Jesus to see his will all the way through to the complete forsaking of the Father. Taking on, right? He was forsaken by the Father. He took on all sin for all time. He loved the Lord. He loved the Father with his whole strength. And that is why it brings the statement of Jesus before he dies when he is up there. It is finished, the culmination of loving the Father, heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is finished. Everything Jesus did brought it to its powerful and eternal conclusion. It's not only finished, it is perfect. This is what it means to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength. We will not do it perfectly. We screw this up, but because of who Jesus is and what he has done, we can repent, our sin can be cleansed, and we can press into him and show him. And this isn't, I'm not talking about works. I'm talking about the full submission of all that we are to Lord. I want to love you. You deserve everything you've done for me. You deserve my love. You deserve my complete and total devotion. You deserve every single bit of submission I can wring out of this flesh. You are worthy, Lord, and you have shown us. You have shown us. Tie it into Micah 6.8. You have shown us, right, Lord? He says you have He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord desires of you. But to love mercy, do justly and walk humbly with your God. That is the literal fulfillment of loving the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength. And again, just completely surrendered in loving worship, willing to give him everything he asks for. We need to trust that whatever, whatever he chooses to do with us is right and good and true and best. And we should give this life, heart, mind, soul, and strength to him in gratitude and in worship. Because loving the Father, heart, mind, soul, and strength is exactly what Jesus did for us. It is how then Jesus could love us as he loves himself, which is the commandment that he gives us. Jesus also warned us what the cost of the submissive love is, right? We see Jesus completely preoccupied with the will of the Father, loving the Lord, preaching his gospel, going from town to town. It was persecution, it was hate, it was rejection. That's what his wholehearted love of the Father cost him. And it's the same for us. But he also told us he would give us a comforter, he would give us a community, and he would give us everything we need to walk his narrow way. And also just think about what Hebrews 12 says: the joy that was set before Jesus allowed him to despise the shame of the cross. And that's the joy that's also put before us, which is complete reconciliation with the Father in the person and blood of Jesus through the gift and leading of the Holy Spirit. This is the kind of radical love that we are called to first. And if we don't practice this love for the Lord, if this love for the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is not what we are consumed with, then our love for our neighbor will never be righteous. And so we'll talk about loving our neighbor as oursel next week. But I want us to think about these things. Think about what it really means to love the Lord. Ask the Lord to examine us. Where, where, Lord, are you calling me to love you in submission and sacrifice? And I'm not doing it. Deal with me, Lord. Show me, Lord Jesus. Father, I don't want to offend you. I don't want to offend you. I want you to know that you have everything. Holy Spirit, I don't want to grieve you. I want to follow you and I want to know you. And I and I want I want to show you. I want to show you that I love you. And my worship and in my gratitude for the magnitude of who all three of you are because of what you have done for me. This is why loving the Lord is the first and foremost commandment, because out of it springs everything else that we do. So as we go forward, I want to read this. I'm going to bless you again every week. Pray a blessing of scripture over you that we would walk with Jesus and that we would know him. And this actually ties into the one I read last week, but it fits perfectly with today. So Jude 20, uh verse 20 through 22. But you beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to eternal life, and have mercy on some who are doubting. And on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the fresh flesh.

unknown: 35:56

Amen.