LOVE GOD | Matthew 22:37–38 | Pastor Ryan Gerlach | 6.15.26

Love God with your very everything!

Transcript

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Hello, this is Pastor Ryan Girl and Pastor John Anderson. Welcome to the Resurrection Church Pioneer. Each week we bring you Sunday's message from Resurrection Church right here in Racing Wisconsin. So whether you're listening on the woman or having the war, you're just holding some laundry or avoiding folding laundry, but we hope this encourages your faith, challenges your perspective, and reminds you that resurrection isn't just something that happened. It's something God is still doing. Enjoy this week's message.

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All right, good morning, dear church. You know, we weren't gonna show that again, but we had a lot of requests. So many emails flooded my inbox. Uh please, please show that again. There might have been a do not uh F before that. But the point of that is to we gotta bust back into the Bible or maybe open it for the first time because there's a lot of richness, there's a lot of goodness inside of that Bible. Uh and this sermon series talks about all about going back to the basics, the foundation, what it means to be uh a Christian, and then what are like the foundational fundamental teachings that that the scripture teaches us? And some of these texts, you're like, oh, I've heard this before, I can zone out and think about what I'm gonna do after church. But hopefully there'll be some sort of transformation in the way you see them, the way we lift these up today. Last week, Pastor John talked about following Jesus. The first step is just to follow Jesus. When Jesus called his disciples, he said, follow me. First thing he did, he whether they're fishing, uh collecting taxes, he would just say, follow me. And so for us, the call is the same. You don't need a degree, a diploma, any kind of sign permission slip. Just take this first step and follow Jesus. And today we're looking at what it looks like to love God. And then and and Kathy was probably uh just like, well, it wasn't even worth my trip coming up here with her reading. It was so short. But it was there's a lot of heart into that. There that is a rich text, and there's a lot to unpack. Uh, and we just wanted to have a table up there. Mary did a great job just decorating the area, just to go back to the basics of what it looks like to be a church that communes at a table. Just a nice, simplistic, back-to-basis. You got my uh Daytona Beach sandals down there for you. Um, but with that, I I I want to jump into this uh and let's pray. God, you are so incredibly good. We pray that you just move hearts in a big way today and help us see what it looks like to truly, truly, truly love you. We pray this in your holy name is all God's people say. Amen. Amen. Have you ever been asked before, in one way, shape, or form, what is the most important thing to you? One of those questions of if you were stranded on a deserted island, what are the things you would bring? What is the one thing you would bring? Or if something was to happen to your house and you had to grab something, what would you grab? A lot of people would say their pets, their family, uh, you you name it, what would it be? God has a holy call for that part of your heart. Uh, he doesn't want just a piece of it. There is something God asks bigger from us. Some more uh than just something on the sidelines. And we're gonna talk about that today. When Jesus was talking to the these Pharisees and Sadducees, they were trying to get him in a place where they could maybe trap him in some sort of heretical statement where they could dismiss him. Maybe if he made a quote outside of the law of Moses, the Sadducees, they only adhered to the first five books of what we call the Old Testament, uh, Hebrew scriptures, the Pentateuch would be Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Those are the only things. Everything else, no, and the so that was vital to them, the Sadducees. But the Pharisees, they were all about the law. Sadducees were more aristocrats, and and the Pharisees were all about adhering to the law. So when Jesus totally like owned or pwned uh the Sadducees, the Pharisees stepped up and said, Oh, that was amazing. Let's let's let's ask him a question that maybe will throw him off, or maybe he has something that'll go on it. And they asked this uh a lawyer, someone who was well versed in the law, asked a very important question, a good question. It whether it's authentic or meant to trap is a good question. He said, What is the most important thing that God tells his people? What's the most important commandment? And God or and Jesus answered with with something holy that any good Jewish boy and girl would know, something called a Shema. Everyone says Shema, it's Shemmah. It's something they would recite daily and it would be etched on their hearts. And he said, This is the greatest and best commandment. The first commandment, it is something that should be uh tattooed to your hearts. It should be part of your heartbeat. And it has to do with hearing God. Uh, let's add these words together. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And as for you, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. That is from Deuteronomy Jesus. What Kathy so beautifully read was from Matthew, what Jesus was talking about in Mark, he also quotes this where he adds strength to um the the Deuteronomy text as well. So we see this text from two ways, and this is the heart behind it. This this kind of like like we know the Lord's Prayer is like everyone would know this text from Deuteronomy. And so the word Shema that you just learned and said so beautifully, my Hebrew professor would be very proud of you, comes from the Hebrew word. If you can read that, it's it's a it's means hear or listen, the Shema. And it is it is something that was just a a mantra, if you will, for them. Okay. And and it's all about hear, O Israel, first and foremost, listening. So part of loving God is listening to God. And notice this this word hearing, it's a deeper kind of hearing. It's not just the the sound pattern that comes into your ear, it's it's a more embodied wholeness, kind of like a uh as shalom is to peace. This Shema is to hearing. It's oh it's deep listening. It's an active listening. So, re as you all know, if you are in a relationship or have been um or or will be, I'm guessing we're all in some kind of relationship. It's more than just talking the whole time. Relationships require more than just hearing, it requires active listening. And as as I learned my first year of marriage, if you hear these words, are you even listening to me? The correct answer is never. Well, that's an odd way to start a sentence, you know. Never, never. Listen, that's funnier than you made that out to be, everybody. I just want to let you know. Because you're in your brain, you're like, that's the first time they're talking. John, can you explain that to them later? The the joke is it was a joke. Um, but when when I come to God sometimes, I have a list of requests or even demands. God, here's what you're doing wrong. This is what you could do better. And sometimes I just need to sit and be still and know that God is God and just to zip it. He's telling me I need to, John. Come on, man. No, uh, but it's holy. Have you ever just said, All right, here comes my prayers. I have it two pages long. It's gonna be great, God. Or have you ever just sat in God's presence and listened to God's words? Samuel does it best. He he he was just laying in bed and all of a sudden he heard God calling his name. And Samuel, Samuel just responded, What's going on? He thought it was Eli talking to him, but Eli said, just ask or say these words, speak, your servant is listening. I think that's such a holy response to when God calls our name. Just speak, your servant is listening. Instead of this is what I'm gonna do, fix it, this is what I'm gonna do there. Just speak, I am listening. When we moved into our our house, we had this odd thing. It's like a gap in our wall in our living room. And I was trying to think of creative ways to fill it, and my wife had better creative ways, but I'm like, I don't know, we'll we'll make like a shelf system and I'll do it myself. I'm a amazing DIYer. By amazing, I mean I can get things done. It just doesn't look good or hold up or last. But it, you know, I know how to turn the tools on sometimes. But she said, I I have another idea, which is a better idea, but there was there's hooks already put in by the previous owner. And I'm like, I don't know if you can trust those hooks. I know what I'm I'm doing, but can you trust those hooks? And so she she did that. She bought something from Hobby Lobby, just put there and she did a great job. I was very impressed. Although I will say there is only one picture of a family member, and it happens to be our dog, Kiko. And I'll zoom in on that, uh, a little Kiko action right there. Okay, that was just a ploy to get you to look at my cute dog, Kiko. But when it comes to this, I think it's a just reflecting on it. I it's a great look at how we do life. We have all the aspects of our lives. We have our Sunday self, we have our work self, maybe our school self, our family self, and all these different parts of us that we all put on the shelf, take off this hat, put on that one. And God doesn't want to be just a part of a piece of that shelf. God wants to be the hook holding everything together, being a part of everything, holding everything up, every single piece of it. And if I were to do it all myself, that would have collapsed and it would have been on the floor, and we'd have to buy a whole new system and hire someone, probably. But just trusting the one that came before, it all holds up. And also trusting the one that put it all together. Church, I'm asking you, do you trust the one that came before that put the blueprint in place that wrote the last chapter? Do you trust God and love God with it all? And I will I want to talk a little bit about Mark's version of it because he ends it with text. This is with with this text that is holy, and I think we need to spend a little bit of time on it. It's this word mahod, and it's this word that we find in Hebrew that talks about, at least in this Deuteronomy text, with all your heart, mind, and then this word strength. There's actually a Hebrew word for strength, and it's not ma'od, and we have to wonder why that is. So we have this word uh strength and ma'od. Maybe you've heard the word ma'od before. I love to use it because it's one of the two Hebrew words I know. Okay, so I'll keep on repeating it. But the ma'od doesn't actually mean strength in that sense. We find in scripture that ma'od means very much or very, very. Okay. And we see that in Genesis, when God created the world, he called it Tov, which is good. On every day, he said it was so good. But then he created us, and he said it was Tove Ma'od, very good. When Cain or when the when the Noah's Ark was was was 40 days, 40 nights, the storm was powerful. It was ma'od powerful, very powerful. When Cain and Abel were just mad at each other, Cain was maod angry, very angry. When Saul became king, he was ma'd happy, very happy. So we have this Maod seeing all these different things in Hebrew scriptures. Very happy, very powerful, very good, very angry. And yet in this Deuteronomy text, for some reason it was translated to strength. But if you look at the deep depth of behind this word, this mayod, it's a look at the richness of the wholeness of this fulfillment of this whole word. And it's something far greater than just even a very or even like a um a strength or power or muchness. When Jesus was talking about this, when he referred back to Moses' text about it, he was saying, with every fiber of your being, love the Lord with your mind, with your body, with your soul, and everything you got, love God with it. So instead of love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, a a clearer, more precise translation would be love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with your very much everything, with everything, everything you got. God doesn't want to be a sideline God, an on-the-shelf God, or a part-time God. God's in it full-time, 24-7. And his love is never, ever, ever ending. I was in the car with someone that uh that we were we're going to a brewer's game, and he was telling me that he was reflecting on on his his journey through the Bible. He started reading the Bible uh front to back. And he was in Isaiah at the time, and he says, I like it, it's just very repetitive. And he was reflecting on why it'd be very repetitive. And then he came to a beautiful conclusion was because God's people, although they heard the words, they would keep on messing up and they would keep on having to come back to God. They would be this beautiful dance of God, we need you, God, we don't need you, God, we need you, God, we don't need you, back and forth. So, of course, Isaiah and the prophets had to be repetitive. But guess how many times God's love wavered in that holy dance? Never. God's love is never ending. And so when we love God back, there are times where we're like, okay, God, I'll give you not the top shelf, maybe not even the medium shelf. I'll give you whatever time I have left. Now listen, I'm not saying time with God is is not good. Any ounce of your day you can give to God is great. But God says, I want all of it. All of it. Not just a piece of it. I want all of it. I want to hold it up. I want to hold you up. And those times you believe I'm there, and the times you don't, the times you have that diagnosis, and the times you are healed, the time you lose someone, those times you are broken, and those times you are crying with joy, I want it. I want to be with you. I hope you know in reflection, dear church, that there is never a time where God is far from your side. In fact, God is with you every moment. Only asks is, give me that love, that connection, all of it. I don't know if if if you've ever had a time where you put God on the shelf, where you walked away from the church from God's love for a while, or at least thought you did. And then the coming back, your homecoming, was it holy? Was it transformative? Was your time away from God fruitful? Was it a time where you're like, wow, my life is phenomenal? Or do you find that you've had fruit those times you were connected with God where your roots were deeply embedded into the river of God's love? I haven't heard a lot of stories of people coming back to God saying, Wow, I wish I wish I wouldn't have done that. All I've heard from people is saying, My life was transformed when I proclaimed that God was in charge of it all. I gave it all to God. So, dear church, my my hope for you, my heart for you is that this is something that will be you realize that it's everything you need is God's love and loving God. I'm gonna end with this quick story. It's a story, and I've I've heard it in different ways or shapes or forms. I I hope it's true. Probably isn't, but it's a story about an old, old uh monk that was taking on, or he was he was uh taking on the tutelage of a younger monk coming in. And the young monk was saying, just trying to impress the older guy, and he's trying to say all these things he did to earn God's love. And he's like, Oh, I prayed an extra three hours this morning, and I did this, and I gave more alms to the poor, and and I fasted for more than any of my other brethren, and I did all these things. God has to love me more. And as he was talking, the the older monk stopped him and he said, Here, look into this barrel of water, look close. And as he was looking closer, the older monk grabbed his head and shoved it in the water, just held him down, held him, and the guy was like squirming. And the older monk just held as he was holding him down, he lifted him up toward while he while he was still foiling. He didn't go too long. But he said, Until you realize that you need God more than the air you breathe, man, that's when you'll know God's love. When you realize that you need God more than the very air you breathe. Church, do you love God more than the very air, the thing that keeps you alive? That there is something even greater than the breath of your lungs. May God's pneuma, God's spirit, be the breath that gives you life, gives you peace, and may you forever love God this day and always. Amen. Amen.