We are one church. We love God, love people, love
His mission, and love His church.
Welcome to the One Church podcast.
Today we're carrying on our teaching series looking at the
Greatest Commandment. So just to recap what we've
looked at so far, we have looked at loving God with all your
heart so that we can only love God because we are first loved
by God. That love doesn't originate in
us, but love originates in Him, and we can love because He loved
us. Loving God with all your soul.
We looked at some principles that keep our souls strong.
His word, the Sabbath, fasting, praying in the Spirit, good
things like that. And then last week we looked at
loving God with all our mind, setting our minds on things
above, renewing our minds, putting to death the things that
lead to death, and putting on the Spirit that leads to life
and peace. And today we're looking at
loving God with all our strength.
Now today maybe you look at me and physical strength maybe
wouldn't be the first thing that you thought of as you look at me
standing here. Well, I'll have you know that I
have become a gym girl. I've been going to the gym since
winning a competition for a three months membership and just
to say I have never won anything in my life.
And the first time I win something it turned out to be a
membership for regular torture. So I think that was brilliant.
But my strength has increased little by little through
exercise and pushing myself a little bit at a time.
And then the day came to put my strength to the test.
I had a message from one of my friends who no longer lives in
Leicester, and she needed a suitcase picking up from her
aunt's house. Her aunt was moving out and it
needed to go before she could get back to Leicester to get it.
So I said, yeah, that's fine, I'll head over.
So I arrived, say hello to Auntie, and she takes me
upstairs to the suitcase. Now suitcase on wheels, no big
deal, right? So I pull it and it doesn't
move. So I think, oh, the wheels must
be broken. The wheels are not broken.
This is the heaviest suitcase I have ever known in my life, Josh
can vouch. He had to move it the second
time. But I put a little bit more
effort in and I managed to drag it down the corridor.
But then the reality hit me. I was upstairs.
I was going to have to get this suitcase down the Victorian
Terrace House stairs now, I said to the auntie.
I said I don't know how I'm going to get this down the
stairs. It's so heavy, she said, I've
got a good idea. What if you go down before it
and let gravity help it? I thought, yeah, that's a great
idea until I'm squashed at the bottom of the stairs for years
to come under this very heavy suitcase.
But I did it and I let it come down and it was very slow and
steady, but I let it happen and it was good.
I said goodbye and I wheeled it out to the car.
Second reality hits me. I've got to get it in the boot
on my own alone, but I'm a gym girl now and so I'm strong and
so I muster every muscle in my body and I use all of my limbs,
limbs I didn't realise I had, and I hoist it into the car with
everything that I've got, never to be moved again by me.
Hallelujah that Josh And then my friend's boyfriend was able to
move it and get it to where it needed to be.
But the gym membership was worth it, everybody.
Our key passage is Mark 1228 to 31, and this is what it says.
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.
Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him
of all the commandments, which is the most important?
The most important one, Jesus answered, is this.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is 1 Love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with
all your mind, and with all your strength.
And the second is this love your neighbour as yourself.
There is no commandment greater than these.
Now, for context, this passage was referencing a passage in
Deuteronomy in the Old Testament.
It was called the Shema. It was a prayer that Jewish
people prayed every day, every morning and every night.
And it's so it would have been very familiar to people.
Jesus was bringing together hundreds of Old Testament laws
and commands and he was collating them into just two
instructions in simple to love God, which is what we've talked
about the last three weeks and today, and to love people, which
is what we'll talk about next week.
That is a huge part of our church's vision to love God and
to love people. And this is something that is at
the heart of Jesus for us today. Now quite clearly Jesus isn't
saying love God with all your strengths.
So go on get a gym membership. Although physical training is
good as it says in one Timothy, but what is he saying?
The word strength in the Hebrew is the word met owed.
Now met owed was more commonly translated as very.
So it's a an adverb, a word that describes the word that follows
it. So it would say when God made
humanity, it was met owed good. It was very good.
The flood were waters were met owed powerful.
In the story of Noah, it was very powerful.
So why does a word that means very or much get translated to
strength? Well, if me ode is a word that
intensifies something's meaning to its full capacity, then the
thing that we use to love God isn't actually a thing at all.
It's everything. So what it means is that we're
devoting every possibility and opportunity that we have to God.
Some often interpreted me owed to mean power or strength.
Others would interpret it to mean wealth, meaning that we
have opportunities to love God by giving our resources to show
him that we love him. But the word me owed is not
supposed to limit the ways that we are to love God.
In fact, it's the opposite. It's to say that everything in a
person's life, every moment, every opportunity, every
ability, all of our capacity, offers a chance to love and
honour the one that made you, to love God with all your muchness,
so to speak. So if our strength is basically
everything that we do, then loving God with all our strength
is every practical thing that we do.
It's saying that our love for God is a love that acts on a
feeling or acts upon our words. I tell my children every day
that I love them, but unless I show them by helping them with
things that they can't do, by playing with them, by taking
them to clubs, by meeting their needs, and even more than just
meeting their needs, then my love for them is just words.
Love is meant to be action. I'm so grateful to God for our
three children. They are amazing.
And there are some moments where it's a little bit overwhelming
and very loud. Now, I share this story in the
hopes it reminds you of my humanity, that I am just a
human. But we were driving home from
school this week. Josh was away for a couple of
days, and one of the kids had got very upset, was crying very
loudly for something that you and I wouldn't see as a big
deal, but obviously to him was a big deal in that moment.
And the volume in the car in that moment was something that
even now remembering it makes my skin crawl.
And in that moment, I just exploded at the kids.
And I shouted. I hate shouting at the kids.
And two things after I had shouted in that silence fills
the car because everyone's like, oh, dear, we did something bad.
Two things came out of one of the boy's mouth.
The first was this. Mama, I'm sorry.
It sounds like you're feeling a bit angry.
Thanks for that. And then secondly, this really
moved my heart. We got in and I'd hugged the
child that I'd shouted at. And then the other child said,
Mama, would you like me to make you a cup of tea?
And I said, yes, I would like that, thank you very much.
And he successfully did it. I did help with the water.
But you know, even at such a young age though, his love for
me is more than his words is actions.
To do something that he knows I will value.
Not because I deserve it, because to be honest with you,
in that moment, I didn't really deserve it, but because I'm
loved now. Our love for God must be shown
through our actions. For me, when someone takes an
interest in something that I'm passionate about, then it shows
me that they love me. For example, as when I was a
teenager, I remember driving with a friend.
She'd asked what I'd been up to for the weekend.
We'd run a an event in youth and that was an invite night.
I'd been singing. I invited none of my friends and
she said, why didn't you tell me?
Why didn't you invite me to come?
I said, oh, I, you know, I didn't really think that it
would be your thing. I didn't think you'd want to
come. And she said this phrase which
should stick with me forever. She said of course I want to
come. If it matters to you, it matters
to me. Now let that be an encouragement
for you, firstly for the 14th, that if something matters to
you, then it matters to the people in your life.
So you can invite somebody to come and let's believe that
they're going to take an interest.
But also let's consider what is on God's heart.
What's something that God is passionate about that we should
take an interest on His behalf? God has a passion for justice.
He has a desire to show grace. He has a heart of compassion.
He loves the unlovely. He longs for people to find
freedom and healing. He longs for the gospel to be
shared with people that have not yet heard it.
How can we take an interest in the things that are at the heart
of God and act upon it to show Him that we love Him?
Let's look at Amos. Amos is one of the prophets in
the Old Testament and he's known as someone that used his voice
to speak out in moments of injustice.
God showed Amos that he loves righteousness and justice.
And so Amos was also to love righteousness and justice and he
was to do whatever was in his power to bring those things to
earth. Amos 524 says, But let justice
roll on like a river, righteousness like a never
failing stream. Now the king of his day was a
man who was not a man of God. He had no concern for justice or
integrity. He allowed the wealthy to ignore
the poor, He allowed the poor to be sold into slavery to pay
their debts and he denied them of any legal representation.
Now the Bible is very clear, the poor, the marginalised and the
outcast are very important to God.
Now Amos was adamant that this had to be dealt with because he
had God's heart and he was passionate about things that
were on God's heart. And so he took his complaint to
God and then he prophesied to the people of Israel what would
happen to the king and what would happen to the people if
they continued in this way. He called out their sin, He
called out their hypocrisy, He called out their sham worship.
Their worship was totally disconnected from how they were
treating people. How many of you know that if
worship is the adoration of God, we can't adore God and mistreat
His people? Amos love for God turned to
action so that God's people were called back to a life that
honoured justice and righteousness that God had
called them to. If you want to know a bit more
about this, the Bible Project which is a great resource on
YouTube, it has a fantastic 7 minute video on the book of Amos
that will further explain things a bit for you.
But in short, Amos was a man whose love for God and the
things on God's heart turned him to action.
What about practically for us? What are some ways that we can
love God with all our strength? The entirety of who we are?
If you're Matt odd is the strength, the full passion of
your heart, your gifts, your talent, your power, your
influence. What are you doing to show God
that you love him beyond telling him and beyond simply feeling
him? Well, what about your power?
The word dunamis is where we get the English word dynamite.
What about your dynamism or the energy that we have?
Mental capacity, our physical capacity?
What about our influence? So if injustice breaks God's
heart, then it's got to break our hearts too.
And we must be moved to bring influence and to bring justice
in our spheres. Maybe your circle of influence
feels small, or maybe your influence reaches to hundreds of
people, whether it's the ones and twos in your immediate
family or it's hundreds of people through your job every
day. Your influence is important that
we use it to show God we love Him.
What about our wealth, our treasure?
If God has blessed you with a resource, whether that's big or
small, which He has for all of us, then how are we using our
wealth or our resources to give away to those in need?
To give to God through the body of Christ and to through the
church to give to people that He places on your heart.
The Bible says that where your treasure is, there your heart
will also be. You know, if you value something
that you'll pay for it. My gym membership, I value it so
I pay for it. If you love watching football,
you might pay for a season ticket.
Even if it's going bad, you still go because you value it
and you've paid for it and you leave at half time like a lot of
people did yesterday. You know, the love of money is
the root of all evil. Money is not evil, but the love
of it is. So we need to learn to love the
one that gives more than the gift He gives.
What about our opportunities? You know, God gives us
opportunities every day to show Him that we love Him through
obedience. If you love me, you'll obey my
commands. We show God that we love Him by
having the courage to share Him with others.
This week we celebrated courage in our eldest son Levi, who took
30 invitations to school for RISE, which is our monthly kids
group for Key Stage One children.
And he invited as many kids as he could get the Flyers into
their hands of after school. And on Tuesday night two kids
from his class came and was so excited to be in church and
absolutely loved it. He prays everyday as he walks
into school and prays many different things.
But one thing he prays I think everyday is that God would give
him courage. And when the opportunity
presented itself, he was obedient and he was courageous.
What opportunities are in front of you?
How about being people of great faith?
When somebody tells me something that I could offer to pray for
them about, should I pray there and then I think I should.
Would I see more people healed if I prayed right there in the
moment when they told me they were unwell or injured?
I'm sure I would. When opportunities arise to
share Jesus, let's be people of great faith and show him that we
love him by obeying His voice. Would everything I do show my
love for you? And then what about Jesus?
If we look at a life that epitomised the word strength and
met owed, it's got to be Jesus, right?
If we think about the life that he lived, loving the unlovely,
think about how he reached out and he touched lepers, people
that were completely outcast from society, people that nobody
wanted to be near or talk to, let alone touch.
How he spoke out against injustice, the religious leaders
when they failed to show mercy and love towards people in
preference for just keeping rules, Jesus spoke out against
that. He challenged religious
hypocrisy. If you think about when he
flipped the tables in the temple because people were selling,
buying and selling in the temple rather than using it for a House
of prayer. But he loved everyone he came
into contact with. He loved them by meeting their
needs, by challenging them in love, by healing them, by crying
with them, by eating with them, welcoming them, comforting them.
Jesus's love could never have just been contained into a
feeling or to words. Think of the Garden of
Gethsemane before he was seized and unfairly arrested, tried and
sentenced to death. It says that he cried out to the
Father in agony in Matthew 26. My father, if it is possible,
may this cup be taken from me yet?
Not as I will, but as you will. The strength it took to
acknowledge the pain that lay ahead of him, but the strength
to accept the will of the Father, whatever it looked like.
And then think of the strength it took to carry the cross in
its physical weight, but even heavier than that, the weight of
humanity's faults, humanity's sin and all wrongdoing on his
shoulders. To die in our place, to pay a
price for our sin. Because Jesus loved the Father,
he wanted to obey the Father. And because he loves you and me,
He put love into action in the most iconic event in all
history, when he died for you and He died for me.
But maybe you need to come to know this love that laid down
his life for you. I want to say that a
relationship with Jesus can transform every aspect of your
life, some in simple ways, some in a dramatic way.
But all who have come to know Jesus have had their lives
changed. Jesus, 100% God, totally divine,
humbled Himself to be born on earth as a human baby with all
the needs of a very normal baby. If you've ever had a baby,
you'll know they have a lot of needs.
He didn't come down as a 30 year old ready to fight the systems
and show everybody that he was God and he was in charge.
He humbled himself. He lived a perfect life, but a
hidden life for many years. And then at the right time, he
began to minister to people and see people find freedom and
healing and restoration and then eventually to die in our place.
But he didn't stay dead because he wouldn't be a God worth
giving your life for if he was still dead.
No, death is not the end. We can know right relationship
with God while we're here on earth and we can know eternal
life with Him in heaven when we go to be with Him if we choose
to accept Him because the alternative and eternity
separated from God in eternal suffering is our alternative if
we choose not to accept him. But today you can choose to
accept Jesus. There is nobody too far that His
love doesn't reach you. And then for the rest of us,
maybe there's something that, you know God wants you to do for
Him, and we're going to worship in a moment.
But why don't you just allow God to speak that to you?
If there's something of a gift in you or a resource that you
have that you know God wants you to love him with all your
strength, with everything that you are, with all that you have,
maybe he's going to highlight that to you in just a moment.
Or maybe there's something in you that doesn't reflect to God
that you love him, a way of living or an action or something
that you do that doesn't reflect that you love him well, as we
sing, allow the conviction of the Holy Spirit to come and just
prompt you, nudge you and say is that and then lay it down and
let our hearts cry. Be today, God, we love you.
Let everything that I am declare that I love you.
The Lord bless you. And keep you.
The Lord make his face shine upon you.
And be. Gracious to you.
The Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.