It is absolutely astounding to me to realize that God has disclosed himself to us, his creation, not only in his creation, but also in his written revelation, the Bible and the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Folks, I hope and pray that you will never lose the wonder of these realities, especially now this morning as we look into his word that he has given to us. So will you take your Bibles and turn to Mark 12. We are still in verses 28 through 34, under the heading "God's Foremost Commandments." Let me read the text to you, Mark 12, beginning in verse 28, "One of the scribes came and heard them arguing and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, 'What commandment is the foremost of all?' Jesus answered, 'The foremost is, 'HEEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL., AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STENGTH.' The second is this, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is no other commandment greater than these.' The scribe said to Him, 'Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that HE IS ONE, AND THERE IS NO ONE ELSE BESIDES HIM; AND TO LOVE HIM WIITH ALL THE HEART AND WITH ALL THEUNDERSTANDING AND WITH ALL THE STRENGTH, AND TO LOVE ONE'S NEIGHBOR AS HIMSELF, is much more than all bird offerings and sacrifices.' When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently He said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.' After that, no one would venture to ask Him any more questions."

The context here is the Temple Mount. Jesus is about to days...(audio not available).... lawyer of the Law of Moses, brilliant in the Old Testament scriptures in the rabbinic traditions. He steps forward now to take a shot at Jesus as the Herodians and the Pharisees had done previously, as well as those from the Sanhedrin. And as you will recall, the last time we were together, he had a baited question. And I gave you a three-point outline. We looked at the last two, I'll review them very quickly. The first two points were number one, we see the baited question, secondly, the indicting response. And then finally, the practical implications, which we will look at today. But let me give you a review to remind you what's going on here.

Under the heading the baited question, he says, "What commandment is the foremost of all?" Remember, the ancient Jews had a real dilemma. They believe there were 613 laws in the Pentateuch, and they know that they couldn't keep all of the laws. Plus they had all kinds of other traditions that they had added. And they divided them into heavy laws and light laws. So they had to come up with a solution. How can we impress God so that he will save us with all of these laws? And so what we need to do is at least keep the heavy ones; the essential ones. So the question that they debated quite often was, well, what's the foremost commandment of all? If we keep that one, then surely God will be impressed. And of course, that is the great error of works righteousness. But Jesus knew their motivation. They knew that he knew that that scribe and all of them were trying to discredit him. And he also knew that they had some really bad theology.

So he responded to the baited question, secondly, with the indicting response. He said, "'The foremost is 'HEAR, O Israel, THE LORD OUR GODE IS ONE LORD; ANDD YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.' The second is this, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is no other commandment greater than these.'" Now bear in mind that the Jewish people were very, very familiar with what Jesus just said. In fact, they would recite that two times per day. And they even wrote it on parchment and put it in phylacteries, which were little leather boxes; they had one that would be strapped onto the wrist on the left side closest to the heart. And you can see Orthodox Jews today, they will wrap them around their arm and then they will have one on their head too and they will, Jewish men, will use these during morning prayer. And they would also place the written law here in a little box, "Mezuzah," which means "door post," actually. They would put that on their door post. And if you go to Israel today, you'll see this; if you go into a hotel room, if you go into a restaurant, wherever you go, you'll see a little box and inside of that is this law. In fact, it's always fascinating to me, even when you go into a restaurant, I remember one gal she was busy running in and out of the kitchen and every time she walked through the kitchen door, there was a mezuzah, and she'd kiss it like this. And her left arm was just going like this constantly. So the point is, they knew about all of this. It was the Shema, which is the Hebrew word for "hear." It comes from Deuteronomy six beginning of verse four "'Hear'", which by the way, is tantamount to obey. "'Hear, O Israel, the LORD is our God the Lord is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down nd when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.'" In other words, you must love the one true God perfectly, comprehensively, singularly with the totality of your being--that's the foremost commandment. Moreover, as you live that out, your children are going to ask what's going on here? Why are we doing these things? Why do we say these things?

By the way, folks, we all need to confuse our children with our godliness. So they will ask those questions. And then you can tell them, you can explain it to them. Now, of course, they didn't live this out as they should, as we examined the last time. And I believe that each of us struggle in this area as well. And so I wanted to take some time, and just write down some practical implications of what it means to love the Lord our God. And I came up with four, kind of overlapping realities, that I hope will be helpful to you. First of all, when he says that we should "love" him, realize that number one, this is a commanded love. This is not a suggestion. This is a command. In fact, in the Greek grammar, we see that the actions that will be performed in the future by the subject of the sentence must definitely occur. And that will only happen by the power of the indwelling Spirit.

Now, the question comes to all of us, how can God or anyone else, command us to love him? Or to love anyone for that matter? And that's a question that really comes out of a superficial understanding, a shallow understanding of the biblical term "love" as we see in Scripture. You see, we tend to think of love as an emotion. Like in romance, and of course, we use the term to describe everything from puppies to pizza, right? I mean, we love all kinds of things. But the term "love"--"ahavah" in Hebrew is from a root word "hav"--that which means to give or to care for or to have loyalty towards. So you must understand that the concept of love here doesn't describe how we feel, it describes how we act, how we behave, how we live, and who we live for. The Hebrew equivalent in New Testament Greek is "agapaó" or agape love; loyal, self-sacrificing love of choice, not emotion; even though many times emotion will be a part of that. I mean, think about it. Sadly, most romantic relationships are built upon a wrong understanding of love. I mean, think about most young people, they start to get to that age where they think about finding a mate, and all of a sudden, they get a quiver in their liver, and they can't talk, they can't breathe, the person's just so overwhelming to them. And they have this emotion of love, right? And I'm not saying that that's all bad, but when that's all it is, there's going to be problems. Most people fall in lust rather than in love. I was thinking about this and because of some things that happened last week, I thought I would check out the lyrics of one of the, evidently the most famous singer that we have today, Taylor Swift. I've never heard her, nor do I have any desire to hear her. But I thought I would check it out. And in fact, I heard that the idolatry of this woman is--the people are called “Swifties.” And I thought, well, that's really interesting. And I thought I would, by the way, I read a few things that she had said, and she's extremely hostile to biblical Christianity. A very woke, ungodly, young woman, I guess she's packs out stadiums all over the world. In fact, had a family member, that you wouldn't know, that had bought tickets for their family of $300 apiece, they bought four of them to go hear her in Chicago, and they said that they could sell them for $3000 a piece. So it's incomprehensible to me, that anybody would want to do that. But that shows you the level of idolatry and what the world wants. By the way, that it's such a testimony of what God does to a regenerate heart, it just changes our desires. You know I find that whole thing to be absolutely repulsive. It is repugnant to me, and to you. You know, it's like, I always think of my horses, they will absolutely run over you to get sweet feed and alfalfa hay, but you offer him a good steak, they want nothing to do with it. They have to have a change of nature. And that's what God has done with us.

Well, anyway, I was checking out the lyrics; I looked it up her number one song right now it's called "Is it Over?" And I read through the lyrics, they're too vulgar for me to recite. It's all about an immoral lover, who dumped one woman to fornicate with another woman. I mean, that's just the theme of so much of music that we have today. But that is a perfect example of a distorted understanding of love. A passion that's basically produced by sexual lust. And most marriages, sadly, are built upon emotion, rather than loyalty. They're built upon receiving, rather than giving; a kind of mutual manipulation rather than selfless devotion. It's kind of like walking up in front of everyone to be married and you're saying, to your wife to be or maybe your husband to be sweetheart, you make me feel so good. I'm just overwhelmed when I get around to you. And I'll tell you what, I'm going to give you an opportunity to keep making me feel that way for the rest of my life. Now, love is going to include emotion, but it shouldn't be built upon it. Because dear friends, biblical love that is commanded here is selfless. It is self-sacrificing. It is a conscious commitment to meet the other person's needs; to prefer yourself over or to prefer them over yourself. You don't marry someone so that they will meet your needs. That's not love. That's selfish manipulation. And eventually, that will lead to all manner of covenantal unfaithfulness.

I think of what Paul warned in Second Timothy three and verse two about men being quote, "lovers of self rather than lovers of God." Now, it's true that, again, there's going to be emotion here with love; we're going to have that in our love for God, but especially as we think about how it's distorted--rather than most people coming into a relationship, and saying, "I am devoted to you," it's more of a subtle sense of, "I'm devoted to me, and I'm gonna use you to make me feel good." Well, true love is the type of love that Christ gave to us. Did he not choose to set his love upon us even when we were wretched and depraved sinners? Romans five and verse eight that I read earlier, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." We see this pictured in Christ's love for his bridal church; the supreme example in how we are to love Ephesians five, verse 25, and following "Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her." You know, when Christ gave himself up for me, there wasn't anything there worthy of his love. But it was a choice. Why did he do that? "So that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water, and the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body."

So friends, this is what God commands. This is the kind of love that he commands. A conscious commitment that enlists every aspect of our being. So first, our love is a commanded love. Again, a conscious, decisive, determined, self-sacrificing love of choice, not mere emotion. But secondly, it is a complete love. Notice in verse 30, "'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.'" Now, together, these terms describe the complete essence of man, and the focused, passionate devotion and desires and inclinations that we are to have toward God. In other words, our love shouldn't be some half-hearted, insincere, superficial, occasional kind of love, but a wholehearted, sincere kind of love; a deep love, a consistent love, with the totality of all that we are.

But I want you to notice something here. If we look at Deuteronomy six five that I read earlier, from which the Lord quoted, it says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and might." Now mind you, these are overlapping shades of meaning, describing the totality of our personhood, as I described last time. But it's interesting, that Jesus, the Lord of the church, with full authority, adds something in his statement here and Mark 12:30, as well and as well as in Matthew 22:37. He said that we should love Him "with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and with all your strength." I find this interesting. "Dianoia" in the original language, the "mind" here, it refers to the intellectual part of us; our thoughts, our understanding. And the verb means literally, to reflect upon something to or to ponder, to pensively reflect or perceive. And it's interesting that only men and angels have the capacity to do this. You don't see your dog sitting out there in the yard contemplating the infinite perfections of the One who created him. He's just waiting for his next meal, right? But the mind is the seat of comprehension. It is where reason takes place. It is the wellspring of our emotions. Now think about this. The scribes and the Pharisees perceive themselves to be intellectually superior to everyone else. Especially the hoi polloi that was beneath them. And they did have a towering intellect. I mean, these are brilliant scholars--experts in interpreting the law, or so they thought, Now perhaps Jesus included the faculty of the mind to somehow demonstrate their ignorance and their indolence. We can't say for sure. But it's worth pondering in and of itself. Because they failed to understand the crucial role of the mind in loving God. And as I thought about this, it reinforced in my mind the importance of training my mind, to love the Lord. We read in Ephesians four, verse 17, that unbelievers "walk in the futility of their mind being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness." And then he goes on in verse 23, talking about believer saying that we must be "renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." So there's been a supernatural transformation here of a believer's mind. And we read in Romans eight beginning of verse six, "For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God." So all through Scripture, what we see is that the mind must be transformed. It must be renewed, so that it can fully engage in loving God. It must be illumined, it must be trained, it must be disciplined, to love the Lord our God, and by the power of the indwelling Spirit. We have, as we read in First Corinthians 2:16, "the mind of Christ"--literally the understanding of Christ; the thoughts of Christ. It's a magnificent, miraculous work of grace that occurs in every believer, it is a spirit wrought transformation in the mind, in our thinking. That's why Jesus said in John 171:7, "'Father, sanctify them in the truth, Your word is truth.'" Because you see, it is the Scripture, by the power of the Holy Spirit , hat informs the mind. And the mind informs the conscience, which activates the will, which animates the emotions. Second Corinthians four, a familiar passage, beginning in verse four, we read, that "The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." In other words, unbelievers just live for themselves. They're absorbed in their own life; they're absorbed in the fleeting pleasures of life. That's why you see people constantly walking around like this. They're completely worshipping all the stuff that's on their phones, a form of idolatry. They live out their lives and suppress the truth of who God is. In fact, the Psalmist says in Psalm 10, verse four, "The wicked, in the haughtiness of his countenance, does not seek Him. All his thought thoughts are, 'There is no God.'" There's no God, I don't need to worry about all that stuff. And so they will worship someone like a Taylor Swift, and mock God, as she does, and so many others. And we see this played out in so many ways, I think of the whole DEI, woke world in which we live. It's just insane. Somebody told me the other day that woke stands for "willfully overlooking known evil." Kind of a good way of putting it. I added my own twist to DEI, "demonically, empowered insanity." That's what we see. That's the way the world thinks.

So indeed, the god of this world "has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God." But he goes on in verse six and says, "God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness,'" which he did at creation, "is the One who has shown in our hearts to give the Light, of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." Beloved, that is the power of regeneration, when he raises us from spiritual death to spiritual life, changes everything about us and makes us a new creature in Christ. Dear Christian, rejoice in the transformed mind, but learn to train your mind to love God. "Set your mind on the things above," Colossians, three, two, "not the things that are on the earth." Romans 12 two says that we are to be "transformed by the renewing of your mind." Transformed comes from a Greek word "metamorphoó" where we get the word metamorphosis, and it's in the passive voice, which means it's the renewing of your mind that's going to cause a metamorphosis to occur. And what is that metamorphosis? The metamorphosis is so that you, as a new creature in Christ, will manifest that reality on the outside, so that everyone can see it. It's just the opposite of the phrase right before "do not be conformed to this world," which literally means do not let the world squeeze you into its mold, where you begin to look like it. In fact, the term there for, conformed, "syschēmatizō" is, it means "a masquerade." Don't let the world out there cause you to unwittingly wear a masquerade that is inconsistent with who you really are on the inside, as a believer; as one clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Don't let that happen to you, but rather "be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Dear friends, when that happens, we can say with Paul that "I count all things to be lost in view of their surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

Oh, I trust that you know him. And I must ask you, are you disciplined in training your mind to love God? May put it a little bit differently, perhaps? How often do you find a quiet place and just contemplate the glory of God? How often do you do that? I would argue that most Christians couldn't do that for more than about a minute and maybe two. You ever sit down and think, God, where did you come from? Immediately your head begins to explode. Right? God you've said in your word that you are the self-existent, pre-existent, uncreated Creator of the universe, oh, God, as I reflect upon that all I can do is bow before you. How often do you reflect, reflect upon his attributes, his goodness, his grace, his mercy, his love, his faithfulness, his wrath? How often do you think about his holiness, which is the all-encompassing attribute of God describing his hidden glory, that attribute that portrays his infinite otherness. His incomprehensible transcendence; the consummate perfection and moral purity of his eternal character. How often do you think about Christ as your Redeemer? The one who came to this earth in the incarnation, who went to the cross to bear the sins of all who would trust in him; to give you forgiveness, so that you could be reconciled to a holy God through faith in him? How often do you think about what Christ did in the past? What he is doing in the present? And what he's going to do in the future? How often do you think about your union with Christ? As Paul said, in Galatians, 2:20, to think that "I have been crucified with Christ." So now, "it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." The life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loves me and delivered himself up for me. How often do you just sit there and think about that? Reflect upon that? Peter said in First Peter two seven that Christ is "precious," for those who believe. Is he precious to you? How often do you think about what Peter said, in Second Peter one, beginning of verse three, that he "has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness." We set and just think about what some of those things are. Or as he went on, to say that "He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them, you may become partakers of the divine nature." My there is at least an hour's worth of contemplation right there. Folks, my point is, this is what it looks like to train your mind to love God. I mean, think about it, in First Peter 1:12. We read that these are things "into which angels long to look." Don't you think we ought to as well?

One of my favorite books is entitled "Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ." It was written by John Owen, 17th century Puritan theologian, he was the academic administrator at Oxford University. Let me read what he had to say, just a small portion, and you'll have to bear with me with some of the old English. He said, "God's glory is incomprehensible, and His praises are unutterable. That real view which we may have of Christ and His glory in this world, by faith, however, we can obscure that knowledge which we may attain of them by divine revelation, is inexpressibly to be preferred above all other wisdom, understanding or knowledge, whatever. So it is declared by whom, who will be acknowledged to competent judge in these things, yay, doubtless sayeth he. I count all these things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. He who does not so has no part in Him." He went on to say, "The revelation made of Christ in the blessed gospel is far more excellent, more glorious, and more filled with arrays of divine wisdom and goodness, than the whole creation and the just comprehension of it, if attainable, can contain or afford. Without the knowledge hereof, the mind of man, however priding itself in other inventions and discoveries, is wrapped up in darkness and confusion. This, therefore, deserve the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations and our utmost diligence in them." End quote.

So this is a commanded love. It is a complete love garnering the totality of our being, including our mind, I might even say, especially our mind. But thirdly, it is a covenant of love. Were it not so, it would be impossible for us to love him, even as poorly as we do. Let me give you the big picture so that you understand what I'm saying here. You will recall that in Genesis 12, one and two, God promised Abraham that he would have many descendants, and that they would become a great nation and that they would mediate blessings to all the families of the earth. And then later on in Exodus 19 and 20, God gave Israel a bilateral, conditional, nullifiable covenant--unlike the Abrahamic covenant--it's called the Mosaic Covenant, the Mosaic law. And this was the means through which Israel could stay connected to the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant, not a means of salvation. And then later in Second Samuel seven, verses 12, through 16, God made a covenant with David, promising him a kingly line that would rule Israel, and ultimately rule over all of the Earth, as we read in Zechariah, 14 nine and Isaiah nine, six through seven. But God also knew that he had to do something to fallen humanity, to change their nature, so that they would truly love him with all of their heart and obey him willfully, with all of their heart, their soul, their mind, their strength. And so he made a new, unconditional, unilateral, irrevocable, eternal covenant, whereby he would enable and empower people, including Gentiles, to do just that. We read of this, for example, in Jeremiah 31, beginning in verse 31, "'Behold, days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,' declares the Lord. And of course, there he's referring to the Mosaic Covenant, the only covenant that was conditional and nullifiable and temporary. But he goes on to say, "'But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,' declares the Lord, 'I will put My law within them on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD' for thy will know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,' declares the Lord, 'for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more.'"

Now, while the Mosaic Law was "holy and righteous and good," as we read in Romans seven and verse 12, it did not enable people to love the Lord with their whole heart. But the New Covenant did , and this required the regenerating power of the Spirit, as we read in Ezekiel 36, beginning in verse 26, God says, "'Moreover, I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.'" And of course, the New Testament presents Jesus as the Son of David. He was the mediator of the new covenant, and the only one who can bring new covenant blessings to people who have faith in him. And that's why at the Last Supper, Jesus explicitly linked his death with the new covenant. That's why he said in Luke 22:20, "'This cup that is poured for you is the new covenant in My blood.'" And believers today in the church proclaim the New Covenant as we preach the Gospel. Paul said in Second Corinthians three, six, God has made us "sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit." "Of the letter," referring to the superficial, external, legalistic conformity to the law that was supposed to somehow make a person see their sinfulness. That's why God gave the law. But instead, it promoted a spirit of self -righteousness to them. Worse yet, their externalism prevented them from joyfully obeying the most basic requirement of the law, the foremost commandment to love God perfectly, and their neighbors as their selves.

So here's the good news of the gospel. Because of God's covenantal love for us, the Lord Jesus Christ, through the agency of the Spirit can transform our hearts so that we can love God and our neighbor, albeit imperfectly, until we enter into heaven, and the last vestige of our unredeemed humanity will finally and forever be removed. But between now and then, as we read earlier, in Romans five, verse five, we read that "the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." And because of his infinite love, and grace expressed in the new covenant, we see that he is the one that first loved us, so that we could love him. And John summarizes this perfectly as we looked at briefly last time, we were together in First John four verse 19. "We love," why?, "because He first loved us. If someone says, 'I love God' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." In other words, the point with all of this is a genuine, wholehearted love for God must be initiated by God Himself. We are incapable of doing that. It requires the regenerating work of the Spirit of God within us to cause us to be born again. This is what the Jewish leaders, the Jewish people, did not understand, but needed to hear.

And this leads us to a fourth reality about what it means to love God. Not only is it a commanded love, and a complete love and a covenant of love, but it is a confirmed love. Think about this, what is the test that proves our sincere, wholehearted love for God? What is it that validates the joy and the satisfaction that we have in him? What is it that really proves that he is the priority of our life? That we are living for him that we are serving for him and not just ourselves? Well, the answer is very clear here in the second commandment, that's why he says in verse 31, "'The second is this, YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is no other commandment greater than these.'" Remember, while this was a direct quote from the Mosaic law that they claimed to revere, as recorded in Leviticus 19 And verse 18, the rabbi's taught something different. And I went into this in great detail last time, but let me just review it quickly. They taught that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Jesus described this in Matthew five and verse 43. Remember, the Jewish rabbis were very selective in their interpretation and application of the law. That said, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, Leviticus 19:18. But instead, they did, really four things. Number one, they ignored the meaning of love--"ahavah"--the loyal sectors, self-sacrificing love of choice, not mere emotion. Secondly, they defined neighbor in the most narrow terms so that they could justify their prejudices and my were prejudice. Plus, they ignored the last phrase "as yourself." And instead, number four, they added "and hate your enemy;" the pretty bold distortion of Scripture. And again, they did this because they arbitrarily extrapolated certain passages out of the Old Testament scriptures; like passages referring to exterminating the Canaanites, and the imprecatory Psalms, and so forth, to somehow justify themselves. But what they deliberately failed to understand, in all of those illustrations, in the Old Testament, is that there is a huge difference between personal injury and divine justice.

And this is worth me camping on again for just a few minutes in applying this. God's judgments and his curses that we read about in Scripture were judicial acts of an infinitely Holy God. And they have no application to us in terms of our own personal injury, and somehow redressing individual grievances and offenses. And so therefore, it is absolutely absurd to think that we can apply the actions of divine justice as an excuse to hate and to kill other people that have offended us. And some will argue, Well, wait a minute, you know, we're told to love our enemies. If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, turn the other cheek, return good for evil, and forgive those who mistreat us. But again, bear in mind that those commands and virtues are aimed at the mortification of personal pride that seeks retaliation for a personal offense. They have nothing to do with the abdication of justice and the vindication of righteousness that God alone can do with Jesus commands, with respect to loving our enemies, must be balanced with the whole idea that he is the sole and holy avenger of those who are violently opposed to him.

Now, I know that people will ask therefore, in light of all these things, is it appropriate for Christians to defend themselves when they are attacked? Very important question in this violent culture in which we live, where criminals have more rights than victims? Well, the answer is, well, of course it is. Of course it is, even if it means arming yourself. I mean, that's common sense. Jesus even said in Luke 22:36, "'Whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one.'" I mean, self-defense and self-preservation is an innate mechanism in all of us. We see it in our immune system, we see it in how we naturally respond to things. If somebody comes up to you and does this, you immediately back away and put your hands up. If somebody gets too close to your face, you back away and your eyes blink. I mean, it's just the way we are built. You don't have to teach a young mother or a young father, that they need to protect their baby when somebody comes and grabs it. All right? It's just a natural response. When it says love our neighbors as ourselves, again, it's referring to anyone who is in need; families, for friends, and we have to love them enough to protect them. And it's absurd to think that if your enemy breaks into your home or does something to hurt you, that you just kind of let them do whatever they want. It's absurd to say that Jesus taught that Christians cannot defend themselves from evil people. In fact, Jesus said "'Greater love has is no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Now I want to elaborate on this just a little bit more. Remember that after the flood, God introduced capital punishment, through the force and ultimate threat of government, because human life is valuable. We're made in the image of God. And we read in Genesis nine beginning of verse five, for example, "'Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast, I will require it. And from every man from every man's brother, I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood by his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God, He made man.'" And of course, we read in Romans 13 and verse four, that government is "a minister of God, to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil."

In fact, as we study it, war is an extension of capital punishment designed to protect innocent people, or restrain evil, to maintain social order. Otherwise, you have anarchy. And we've seen evidence of that, especially in the last several years in our country. But you must bear in mind that the government, while it's there to protect you, while we do have police, and sheriff's deputies, and military, they're not going to be there when you really need it, and you have to call 911. You're going to have to protect yourself. Most of the time, it's going to take them a while to get there, right? Of course, you have to protect yourself.

Now back to the issue of love. You see, loving your neighbor, is what validates your love for God. And what a testimony in this "me first" world in which we live. John 13:35 Jesus said, "'By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.'" And indeed the world is going to hate us. Second Timothy 3:12, "Indeed," he says, "all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." But again, we must love them for the cause of the gospel. Even though we may have to protect ourselves from them, if they attack us or our family. And remember, as Jesus said in Matthew five, beginning of verse 10, "'Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, who falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.'" We've all experienced that, right? And if you haven't, you're going to as you serve Christ, and stand up for him; that's just part of being in a fallen world. Those are personal injury types of things; that's where we turn the other cheek and so forth. But he goes on to say, "'Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.'" What a wonderful promise right? The Lord sees, the Lord will reward.

So dear friends, what does it mean to love God and to love your neighbor? Just bear in mind that this is a commanded love, a complete love, a covenant of love and a confirmed love. And you want to ask, "does this describe me?" How do people who know me best describe me? Well, as we close, so sad, the scribe who heard Jesus answered in reply, "Right, Teacher; You have truly stated.'" In other words, your theology is correct Jesus. Verse 34, "When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom.'" You're not in the kingdom, but you're not far. That's the point. Dear friend, it's one thing to embrace accurate theology. Hell will be filled with people with accurate theology, but it is all together something else, to embrace the lover of your soul, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. The hypocrite merely gives lip service to true worship. And that's why the prophet Isaiah quotes the Lord in Isaiah 29:13 "These people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips but have removed their hearts far from me."

So in closing, I would challenge you, train your mind, discipline your mind to love the Lord your God. If you want to know other ways that you can do that, I'd be glad to sit down with you. There are certain exercises that I, you know, it's the same thing with your body, right? You know, if you just sit around and don't do anything and eat sugary foods and processed foods, you know, you're going to be horribly out of shape. And the same thing is true, as a believer, you've got to learn to discipline yourself for the sake of godliness. That's how you really love the Lord your God more and more, and your neighbor as yourself. And may I challenge you as well to just target people that are in your sphere of influence, so that you can love them better, right? So that you have an opportunity for evangelism and pray for them. Pray for them. Pray for those opportunities. And when the Spirit of God gives those opportunities to you, and he will, pray that you will have boldness and patience and love enough to enter in through that door, and give them the truth of the gospel that they might be saved.

Let's pray together. Father, we rejoice in the eternal truths of your word. And I pray as always, that our hearts will be soft and tender to these truths. That we might hear them and heed them, so that we can love you more and love others more. Because Lord, we know when we don’t, we forfeit your blessing in our life. Moreover, we can really place ourselves under a cloud of divine chastening. So, Lord, we pray, that by the power of your Spirit, you will change us according to the truths of your word, for Christ's sake, and it's in his name that I pray. Amen.