Love the Lord

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 3rd of November, 2024.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams.]

Family, it’s hard to believe that we’re already come to November and the waning days of the year.  In just four weeks we will celebrate the start of the Advent season, heralding the birth of our Lord Jesus.  The Prince of Peace is coming, to preach good tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.  And all this is done simply because God loves us and does not want us to die in our sin.  Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love.

But before we enter the Advent season, I want to look at what I feel is a defining moment for Christians.  This is during Jesus’ walk on this earth, toward the end of His ministry, after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday, and after He had chased the moneychangers out of the temple.

The crowds cheering His coming and His action in the temple and even His words all infuriated the Sadducees and Pharisees and scribes.  They had been questioning Jesus for a long time now, but their resentment was coming to a boil.  They wanted to trap Him in His own words and acts, get Him to say or do something against the Law of Moses so they could have Him done away with.  They didn’t fear Jesus - they hated Him.  They were jealous of His popularity and worried they were losing their grip on the people.

But with every test, Jesus answered them with the undeniable truth.  It was one of these times, one of these tests, that I think speaks to us Christians as much as to the Jewish religious leaders, maybe more so.  For that defining moment I mentioned, let’s turn to the 12th chapter of the Gospel account of the Apostle Mark, verses 28 through 34, and I’ll be reading from the New King James Version of our Holy Bible this morning…

28 Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that Jesus had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?”

29 Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

32 So the scribe said to Him, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He. 33 And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

34 Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

But after that no one dared question Him.

--Mark 12:28-34 (NKJV)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, we thank You for ensuring that Your Son’s words and deeds would be saved for us to learn of and study, even after nearly 2000 years!  The Gospel accounts tell of just some of the things Jesus said and did during His short ministry, and in this way we are instructed as to how we should live and act as His followers.  Sadly though, Father, we don’t always spend the time and effort we should in studying the life Jesus led, in how He interacted with others.  We let the world have too great an influence in our daily life.  We are just too often beaten down and wearied by all the lies and evilness filling our days and our views.  Forgive us these times, Father.  Please help us make the effort to grow in our relationship with Jesus.  Help us be more obedient to You and Your Son’s command to spread Your word and the Good News it bears.  Give us the courage and the will to step out into the world witnessing to the non-believers, sharing the Gospel and showing Your love.  Please forgive us when we hesitate to speak and act on behalf of You and our Lord Jesus.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit within us and better understand Your message today.  Help us share the Good News of forgiveness and everlasting life in our daily walk.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

In his book, Moody's Anecdotes, D. L. Moody writes, “Show me a church where there is love, and I will show you a church that is a power in the community.  In Chicago a few years ago a little boy attended a Sunday school I know of.  When his parents moved to another part of the city the little fellow still attended the same Sunday school, although it meant a long, tiresome walk each way.  A friend asked him why he went so far, and told him that there were plenty of others just as good nearer his home.

‘They may be as good for others, but not for me’, was his reply.

‘Why not?’, she asked.

‘Because they love a fellow over there’, he replied.”

Moody goes on to write, “If only we could make the world believe that we loved them there would be fewer empty churches, and a smaller proportion of our population who never darken a church door.  Let love replace duty in our church relations, and the world will soon be evangelized.”

In our scripture reading, both Jesus and the scribe tell us that to love God is the greatest commandment.  Jesus adds that loving our neighbor is the second greatest, while the scribe includes them both together, summing love of God and of our neighbor as being of greater value to God than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices we could ever make.

Love itself is an intangible, and quite difficult to pin down or precisely define.  Countless writers and musicians have tried for centuries, pretty much since the dawn of time, to describe love in an unmistakable way, and there are so many different ways.  One unknown poet once penned:

What is love?

It is silence -- when your words would hurt.

It is patience -- when your neighbor's curt.

It is deafness -- when a scandal flows.

It is thoughtfulness -- for other's woes.

It is promptness -- when stern duty calls.

It is courage -- when misfortune falls.

And if we consider the example Jesus set, love is unconditional, sacrificial, and acceptable service to God.

Just how important is love?  Well, if we look at just the numbers, the word “love” is mentioned 504 times in the New King James Version of our Holy Bible – 237 times in the New Testament alone, 67 times just in the Gospel accounts of the Apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Oh, and in what many consider to be the darkest, most foreboding and fearsome Book of the Bible, love is mentioned eight times in Revelation.

And then there’s the letters the Apostles wrote to believers scatter throughout the known world.  In his first letter to the church in Corinth, the Apostle Paul tells us that, “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

The most compelling reason to see love as greatly important comes in the Gospel account of the Apostle John, what many consider to be the Book of Love, when Jesus told Nicodemus that, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”.

The greatest reason for loving is given by Jesus in our scripture reading: because God commands it.  This is nothing new, of course.  Jesus merely told the scribe what he already knew, what had been taught since the days of the exodus.  Please listen to what Moses instructed the people – and us - in the first nine verses of the 6th chapter of his Book of Deuteronomy…

1 “Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, 2 that you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. 3 Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you — ‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

--Deuteronomy 6:1-9 (NKJV)

We must love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength.  And Jesus our Lord added to love our neighbor, which Moses had included in his Book of Leviticus when he reiterated God’s commands.

We must love God and love others that we may have a good life, both now and in the next, and that others might come to know the Lord, too.  And we must teach our children and grandchildren how to love, showing them love’s importance by our acts and deeds and words.

Family, we are called to love, to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbor.  And the kind of love we are called to is volitional rather than emotional.  It is voluntary, not involuntary.  It is a purposeful decision to love even the unlovable.

C. S. Lewis once said that love is “a deep unity maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habits reinforced by grace”.  Love is committed, unconditional, sacrificial, giving and forgiving.  It is the love Jesus showed us.

So let us love the Lord.  And let us show our love by loving others, as He would have us do.  In the beloved name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You for loving all of Your creation so much that You sent Your only Son into this world to redeem us of our sin.  And some sweet day, He will return to set Your creation right again.  Thank You for loving us, and for commanding us to love You and to love our neighbor.  Loving You is easy, but loving others can be difficult.  Sometimes, Father, we still struggle with a worldview that would have us hate one another and wish harm to our enemies.  Sometimes we just have trouble letting go of the world and worldly things.  Please forgive us these times, Father.  Forgive us when we let the world tell us what to do and how to act.  Please help us reach out more into the world, serving You by serving others, loving You by loving others.  Help us be more like Your Son Jesus, being more forgiving and merciful in our dealings with others.  Please strengthen our spirits to do Your will and help us do a better job of sharing Jesus with others so that they too may be saved by Your mercy and His sacrifice.  

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to Your commands, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, You stressed the importance of love through how You lived and the things You did.  You reminded us of God’s command to love.  Now, Lord, please help us abide in love.  Please help love even the unlovable.  Help us be more like You, more considerate and caring of others, more understanding, more merciful, more giving and forgiving.  And heal the hurts that still separate and divide us one from another.  This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.