One More Challenge... (Mk 12:28-34)
What Does it Mean to Love God?
- Loving God involves my ENTIRE being. (Mk 12:29-30)
- Loving God means loving PEOPLE . (Mk 12:31)
- Knowing is not the same as DOING . (Mk 12:32-34)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above with your cursor for answers!
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00:00-00:04
Open up your Bibles to the Gospel according to Mark.
00:06-00:14
We're going to be in Chapter 12 as we continue our series that we started October of 2013.
00:15-00:24
Last year we followed Jesus through his earthly ministry leading up to this year in October when we launched the ministry year.
00:25-00:32
We're looking at three things as Mark takes us down the home stretch as Jesus fulfills the ministry that the Father gave Him.
00:33-00:36
Mark tells us that Jesus is the Lord.
00:38-00:39
And Jesus is the Lamb.
00:40-00:42
And Jesus is the life.
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Your Bible is really more than just one book.
00:49-00:50
Did you know that?
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It's actually 66 books.
00:52-00:57
actually a library in between two covers.
00:58-01:02
And if I were to give you the assignment, sum up the message.
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66 books, about 40 different authors over a period of about 1,500 years, all inspired by the Holy Spirit.
01:09-01:13
They wrote this book under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
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And if I were to ask you - rather give you an assignment to say, Could you sum up this book in a five page essay?
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Could you do that?
01:27-01:28
Could you do that?
01:28-01:29
Five pages?
01:29-01:36
What if I asked you, could you sum up what this book says in a paragraph?
01:37-01:38
Could you do that?
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What if I asked you, if you could sum up what this book teaches in two sentences?
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Did you do that?
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We're going to see, as we turn to God's Word today, that's exactly what Jesus did.
01:55-02:02
He summed up everything that God is about and everything He calls us to.
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He sums it up in two sentences.
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Because He's facing another challenge.
02:09-02:15
Pastor Jeff, you preached on a challenge last week, and I'm pretty sure the previous two weeks you were talking about challenges.
02:15-02:15
Yeah.
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You remember the story.
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In this section of Mark, beginning in chapter 11, Jesus announces that He's the Messiah by riding on a donkey into Jerusalem, fulfilling prophecy.
02:27-02:32
And the people were cheering and shouting "Hosanna!" And everybody knew what He was saying.
02:32-02:36
He was saying, "I'm the Christ." And what did He do next, remember?
02:37-02:50
He went into the temple the next day where it turned into this big flea market where people were making money off of the Jews who were traveling for the Passover, it turned into a big money-making scheme.
02:51-02:56
Jesus went through the temple and just flipped the tables over and didn't let anybody pass through.
02:58-03:01
Well, the religious people that were making money were furious.
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And they said, "We've got to discredit this guy.
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We have got to make..." All these people are cheering for him.
03:08-03:11
"We've got to make the people think that this guy is stupid.
03:12-03:15
We've got to make the people think that he's nobody.
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He's nothing.
03:18-03:20
That's what we've seen the last few weeks.
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They keep coming to Him with these challenges.
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They ask Him these questions that they think He can't answer.
03:25-03:27
And we have one more.
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And actually, this is the last one.
03:33-03:40
Because in verse 34 where we're going to land today, it says, "After that, no one dared to ask Him any more questions." This was it.
03:42-03:44
This was the last round of stump Jesus.
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Look at v. 28.
03:48-03:53
It says, "And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another..." Previous challenges.
03:55-04:07
"And seeing that he answered them well, asked him, 'Which commandment is the most important of all?'" So what is a scribe?
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A scribe was the theologian in Jesus' day.
04:10-04:13
A scribe was someone who studied the Old Testament law.
04:13-04:16
In fact, a lot of the scribes were actually Pharisees.
04:16-04:20
We're going to see here this particular man seemed to have a sincere interest in the answer.
04:23-04:24
So what was the trap?
04:26-04:33
The trap here, he was trying to get Jesus to say something that was contrary to the law.
04:34-04:39
In other words, they were trying to get Jesus to say something that was anti-Moses.
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If you would have gone to any Israelite in that day, and probably today, and said, "Who's the greatest Israelite of all time?" The top of that list is Moses.
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I mean, the law came through.
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They named the law after him.
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The Mosaic Law led the Israelites out of Egypt, Ten Commandments.
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You know the story.
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So if we can get Jesus to say something anti-Moses, For sure, for sure, the Jews are going to hate him.
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So let's ask him this question.
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Which commandment is the most important of all?
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In fact, in Jesus' day, that was something that the Pharisees argued about.
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Which commandment was the greatest?
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OK, let's play that game.
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Which commandment was the greatest?
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You know, the Ten Commandments?
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OK, "You shall have no other God before me." "Do not make for yourself any idols." Do not use the Lord's name in vain.
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Remember the Sabbath.
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Keep it holy. Honor your father and mother.
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Do not murder.
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Do not commit adultery.
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Do not steal. Do not bear false witness and do not covet.
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Those are the ten commandments.
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So of those ten.
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Which is the most important?
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Well.
05:57-05:58
Stealing is bad, right?
05:59-06:01
Stealing is bad, but let me ask you this.
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Wouldn't.
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Would committing adultery be worse than stealing?
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I would think.
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I mean, stealing is bad, don't get me wrong, but to be with somebody else's spouse, I think that's worse.
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But what about murder?
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I would think killing someone would even be worse than adultery, right?
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I mean, murder is definitely worse than stealing, right?
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And coveting - There's no way.
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What about using the Lord's name in vain?
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Sometimes we all say careless things.
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I think murder is still worse than using the Lord's name in vain.
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But like, what about right off the bat, number one, you shall have no other gods before me.
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Like, that seems like number one for a reason, right?
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And that was what they would do.
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Which commandment was the most important?
06:53-07:00
But I understand it even got worse for the Pharisees because they didn't just argue about the ten.
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You know how many commandments they argued about.
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Here's what the Pharisees did.
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If you look at the Ten Commandments in Hebrew, in Hebrew, if you spell out the Ten Commandments, it's 613 letters.
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Spell those out.
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So they wrote a commandment for each letter.
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So they had how many commandments now?
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613.
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This is what they did.
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They would just sit around and argue.
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Which commandment is more important?
07:31-07:34
Commandments more important? Well, I think this one... No, no, no, that one's not more...
07:34-08:03
This one's more important. This is so dangerous, church, because this is where legalism comes in. You know what legalism is? Legalism is when you think that you can do something to earn God's favor, to earn God's grace, to earn God's love. God That's those things that we do to try to earn, right?
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Well, here's where legalism comes from.
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We start elevating certain commands over other ones.
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Because let's be honest, we can't keep all the commandments, right?
08:15-08:18
We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't keep all the commandments.
08:19-08:25
So what the Pharisees did, and what the church has a tendency to do, is you highlight certain commands over other ones.
08:26-08:36
You say, "Well, we can't keep them all, but these ones are the really important ones." And like the Pharisees, sometimes church, we introduce things as commandments that aren't even in the Bible.
08:37-08:42
That's why at Harvest Bible Chapel you've heard me say, "Bible is our middle name." I don't care about all that extra stuff.
08:43-08:46
What I care about is what does the Bible say? Right?
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What does the Bible say?
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We're not adding man's commands and man's traditions to what we do here.
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What does the Bible say?
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When we start inserting man stuff, that's when we run into legalism.
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Pretty good question.
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If you wanted to trap someone, I think that's a good question.
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Verse 29, Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, 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 strength.
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The second is this.
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You shall love your neighbor.
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As yourself, there is no greater no commandment, excuse me, there is no commandment greater than these.
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Jesus answer came straight from the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible.
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His answer came, first of all, from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 about loving God.
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The second commandment Jesus gave came from Leviticus 19.18.
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"You will love your neighbor as yourself." Now why did Jesus quote this passage?
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I mean, Jesus had a lot of things He could have picked from, right?
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He had a lot of things He could have picked from.
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Why did he pick Deuteronomy 6 right off the bat?
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Just to give you a little context, in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is reciting the law.
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Moses knows he's not going to be able to enter the promised land with the Israelites, so this is his last charge to them.
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He goes, "People, you are going into the promised land, and you must not ever forsake your God who delivered you.
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You have got to obey Him.
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You have got to trust Him.
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You have got to..." He gets to Deuteronomy 6.
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Jesus is showing the Israelites, you can't do this externally.
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You can't be obedient to God externally.
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You can't try to fulfill it.
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Like, "Ok God, just give me the checklist and I'll do the things that You told me." "Ok, Ten Commandments, ok, let's check them off as we do them." You can't fulfill them that way.
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He's showing that God's not about externals.
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God's about the internal.
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And when you enter this land, The most important thing that you need to know is that you need to love God.
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You need to love God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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You have to love Him.
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It has to come from here, people.
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It has to come from here.
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Because the Israelites like us have a tendency to get into legalism.
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No, no, no, it's about love.
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We are motivated by love, people.
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That's why we do what we do.
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Right?
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Obedience can't be external, it must be internal.
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It has to come from loving God.
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And the motivator for us when we talk about loving God, the motivator for us is given to us in one of the epistles of 1 John 4:19.
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It says that we love because He first loved us.
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That's the motivator.
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You can't go home and try to muster up enough love in and of yourself.
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It has to come from the Lord.
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But your motivator has to be, "I love God, because He first loved me." How did He love me?
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Well, first of all, He created you.
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You wouldn't be here unless God handcrafted you.
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And somebody would say, "I didn't ask to be created." Even despite your rebelliousness and my rebelliousness, what did God do?
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The Bible says, "For God so loved the world." He loved us.
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He came to this earth as a man - Jesus Christ - to teach us about Himself and ultimately to die on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven.
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God was punishing my sins on Jesus when Jesus was on the cross.
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The Bible says that He was put in a tomb, and on the third day, He rose from the dead.
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You see, spiritually, we are dead people.
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We are zombies.
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We're walking around, but we are dead inside.
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Jesus Christ rose from the dead to give us eternal life.
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Literally, the Bible says He gave us His life.
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Jesus lives His life through you when you receive Him by faith.
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That's the kind of love that God has shown us.
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That while we were yet sinners, God demonstrated His love.
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And church, that's the only motivation that we can have to love God back.
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Is to examine what exactly He's done.
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The magnitude of the grace and the gift that He's given us in His Son.
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John says we love God because He first loved us.
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Don't get that backwards.
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It wasn't like we were on the earth saying, "God, look, we're so desperate.
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We're trying to love You." God's like, "Well, okay, I guess I'll love you back." He initiated, God initiated, and that's why we love God, because He initiated unto us.
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The question on your outline, at the top of your outline, what does it mean to love God?
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What does it mean to love God?
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Because I think most people would say that they do love God.
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I imagine if you went to the mall or just walked, you know, out in the street, grab these people running their dogs all over the place, those dogs should be at home sleeping and those people should be worshiping.
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Just saying.
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Most people would say, "Yeah, I love God.
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"I love God." But the question is, what does that even mean?
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Because I'll be honest with you, I love a lot of things.
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I love hockey.
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Anybody else love hockey?
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Do you see that game last night?
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Did you see that?
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I have never, and I grew up in the era of Les Magnifiques.
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I have never seen anything like that.
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Have you?
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Where they like, the guy double hit the shootout and they called everybody back out.
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It was crazy.
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I love hockey.
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Love it.
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You know what else I love?
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Pizza rolls.
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Have you had these things?
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They're like little tiny pillows of crust, but there's pizza stuff inside.
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Thank you, thank you.
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Yes, we are like 99.9% the same genetics, me and this guy.
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He obviously has the big gene.
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Pizza rolls are incredible.
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I love pizza rolls.
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But I don't love pizza rolls the way I love hockey.
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I mean, I love them both, but isn't it kind of different the way I love one over the other, right?
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I love hockey and I love pizza rolls.
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You know what else I love?
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I love church discipline.
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(congregation laughing)
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I love when our elders aren't afraid to give a harsh rebuke.
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Love that, I love that about our elders.
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Pit bulls every last one of them.
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I love my dog.
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I love my dog.
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And if you've had the pleasure of meeting my dog, some of you have had the displeasure of being urinated on by my dog.
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I didn't say he was smart.
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I said I love him.
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I love my dog.
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I do.
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He's just always right there with me.
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Dog people here-- there's dog people here.
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That dog just follows me around.
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And he looks at me like I might spontaneously turn into a pile of milk bones.
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He just-- I just love that dog.
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He's such a good friend.
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You know, when Aaron's at work and the kids are rough, and there's Gordy.
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Love that dog.
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But I don't love the dog the way I love hockey.
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I certainly don't love the dog the way I love pizza rolls.
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No idea how the dog tastes.
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You know what else I love?
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I love my kids.
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I'm biased, I know, but I think I have the two greatest kids in the world.
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And they're both so different, and they're both so unique.
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While both have limitations like the rest of us have limitations in an area, both are so strong in other areas.
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I love my kids.
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We have a blast together.
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Yesterday, drawing pictures and making stories with the story maker on the iPad, I love my kids.
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I don't love my kids the way I love my dog, or the way I love pizza rolls, or the way I love hockey.
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Though I have bit my kids before.
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You know what else I love?
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I love my wife.
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Again, I might be showing a little bias here, but my wife is just absolutely my most favorite person on the entire planet.
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You can line her up with every single other woman on the planet and I would still pick her a hundred times out of a hundred.
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I love my wife.
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I do.
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She is everything to me.
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But I don't love her the way that I love my kids, or maybe I should say I don't love my kids the way that I love her.
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We have a very unique and a very special love, the husbands and wives God intended for you.
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I don't love Aaron the way that I love my kids, or my dog, or hockey, or pizza rolls, or whatever else.
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So then we say, "Well, I love God" Do you love God the way that you love pizza rolls?
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Like no.
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Different isn't it?
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You love God the way that you love hockey?
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No.
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It's different.
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Do you love God the way you love your kids?
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No.
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It's different right?
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You love God the way that you love your spouse?
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Oh, it's different.
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So the question is.
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What does it mean to love God?
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What does it mean to love God?
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I want to give you three things here.
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According to Jesus, this is what it means to love God.
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Number one, loving God involves my entire being.
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Loving God involves my entire being.
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We already read the verse.
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I want to circle back and revisit it.
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Here's what happens with preachers.
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Preachers get focused on four words, heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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I'm going to talk about them really quickly.
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Preachers get focused on those.
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And I've been in those discussions actually when I was training in Chicago.
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James McDonald was preaching on this passage, and we spent like an hour or two just talking about these four words.
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What does it mean?
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What's the difference between heart and soul?
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Different preachers have different opinions, but like I said, I'm going to talk about them, But there's really two words in this passage that I want you to focus on.
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That there's no disputing what these words mean.
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But I think these are the two words that are the most important words in the passage.
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And the words are "all" and "and." First of all, let's talk about "all." Look at verse 30 again.
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"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 - all.
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Not half-hearted.
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Not with half your soul.
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Not with half your mind.
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Not with half your strength.
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Not even with 99% of those things.
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Notice he says all.
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All.
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All.
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You sent in all of these categories everything you got into it.
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First of all, all your hearts.
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What do you mean by heart?
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Well, biblically, the heart is the core of who you are. Right?
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The heart is the core of who you are.
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In other words, your heart is your will.
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It's you as a person.
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this, you show love to God by your choices. And it's an objective test. Because Jesus said in John chapter 14, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." And then he restated the same in the negative. "If you don't love me, you're not going to keep my commandments." It's an objective test. Loving God with your heart means you love Him with choices. I choose to love God and it's reflected in the choices that I make.
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How many of my choices? You tell me what's the word we're focusing on here?
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All. All of my choices should reflect that I love God. Look at your life. Do your choices reflect obedience to God? If so, that's indicative that you love God.
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according to Jesus.
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If you love Me, you'll keep My commandments.
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If you look at your life and say, you know what, I really don't make many choices that have really any regards to God.
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Jesus said if you don't love, you're not going to keep the commandments.
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That's just all there is to it.
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Love God with all your heart, all of your choices.
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Secondly, your soul.
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What is He talking about with soul?
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That's your emotion.
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emotions.
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Every week at Harvest Bible Chapel, we spend somewhere between 30 and 35 minutes in music.
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Why?
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Because music stirs your emotion.
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The reason we place such a premium on the worship set, and we spend so much time meeting and discussing it and going over it, and this worship team works so hard, they're incredibly talented, are also incredibly hard working.
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The reason they work so hard to maximize that time is because we want to love God with all of our soul, and what a forum that is to do that.
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The music.
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It's not just limited here.
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You can do this in your car.
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You can do this in your home.
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It's loving God with your emotions.
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Music is a great tool to help with that.
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Music itself isn't the worship, you understand.
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Music is a tool that helps you worship with your emotions.
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The biggest book in the Bible is the book of Psalms.
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Israel's song book set to music.
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What a great way to worship God.
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To love God with our emotions.
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Thirdly, our mind.
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That's our intellect.
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that we think about what we put into our minds.
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Especially paying attention during the sermon.
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That is a great way to love God.
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Ok, he's talking, so I know I can kind of tune out and think about other things here for the next few minutes.
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Loving God with your mind means you're engaging yourself mentally in the message.
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What does the Bible say?
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What is God telling me?
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What is God communicating to me about Himself?
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What is God calling me to?
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What is He saying about His Son?
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And finally, strength.
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It is what it is.
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It's your physical body.
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Loving God with your strength.
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What does that look like?
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I'll show you what it looks like.
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Come and watch Mike Gates turn the school into a church.
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Watch Mike Gates and watch A.J. Rotenberger and watch the people on their team that come and work so hard to turn the school into a church Sunday morning.
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Why are they working so hard?
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Because they're loving God with their strength.
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Look at the people that come here early and go the extra mile in serving people.
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Especially our guests.
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Why do they do that?
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Because they're loving God with their strength.
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I talked about the word "all." I also want to talk about the word "and." I circled them in my Bible.
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You should in yours.
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Jesus didn't just say, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart." Period. And with all your soul. And with all your mind. And with all your strength.
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Meaning every arena of life is about our love relationship with God. And we can get very lopsided in this, can't we? Some people try to just love God in their We call them Bible fatheads.
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Don't mention names and certainly don't point to anybody, but I think we've all met people that love God with their minds and that's where it ends.
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And they can tell you the Bible frontwards, backwards, and sideways, but they have zero obedience to God's Word in their lives.
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They live rebellious, sinful, reckless lives, but they know the Bible frontwards and backwards.
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What's the problem?
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The problem is they took out the word "and." Like, I love God with my mind.
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I can tell you exactly what the Bible says.
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Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic.
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What do you want?
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What do you want?
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You're cheating on your wife, dude.
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Yeah, but I know the Bible.
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Upsidedness gets you in trouble.
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Some people just love God with their souls.
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They get all fired up and they get all emotional about it, but they're not grounded in the Word.
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And they learn to just swap out truth for feelings.
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That the elders of the church say, "Well, this is what the Bible says, this is what we're going to do." And they're like, "I don't like that." "Why?" "Well, not because of the Bible, because of how it makes me feel." That's a problem.
27:38-27:53
You're loving God with your emotions, but you haven't been loving Him with your mind, is you're not letting the truth of God's Word be a part of how you love God.
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Another way we get lopsided - some people just love God with their strength.
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Meaning, they substitute work for relationship.
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Some people feel like as long as I'm working hard, God's happy with me.
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They substitute work for relationship, That is not how it works.
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You should do what you do because of Jesus and for Jesus and empowered by Jesus, not instead of Jesus.
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But if you just love God with your strength, that's what happens.
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You get lopsided.
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How do we keep ourselves from being lopsided?
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Again, it's that one word - and... and... and...
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Everything in you - The story of life should be about your love relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Every arena of your life, you should say, "I do it this way.
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I make these choices because I love God because He loves me." This should show up in your home.
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This is how we run our house.
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This is why we spend money the way we do.
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This is why our home It's a place of hospitality.
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Why?
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I do this because of God.
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Because I love God.
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The way that you love your spouse, married people.
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Why do you love your spouse?
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Why are you constantly pouring yourself out in love and respect and honor and serving your spouse?
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Why are you doing that?
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I'm doing it because of the way that I love God.
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If you just love your spouse based on the way they love you, It might change from day to day, right?
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It might not even be your spouse's fault.
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It might just be your feelings.
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Instead, you should love your spouse the way that you do because you love God.
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The way that you parent your children.
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Kids, the reason that we do these things, or kids, the reason we don't do these things is because of our relationship with God.
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Because we want to love God in the way that we love you.
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That's why we say no to some things, kids.
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At work.
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Why do you work so hard?
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The Bible says you're working for Christ.
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No, I'm working for Walmart.
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It doesn't matter who signs your check.
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The Bible says whoever you work for, you're working for Christ.
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Meaning, your love relationship with Jesus Christ should reflect the way that you work.
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Young people still in school?
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The way that you conduct yourself in school should be a reflection of your relationship with Jesus Christ.
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This is why I treat other kids in school the way that I do.
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This is why I make sure people aren't bullied or feel like they're neglected or feel like they're an outcast.
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I want to include those people. Why?
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Because I love God.
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And this is how God loves.
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This is why I do these things.
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So loving God involves your entire being.
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Secondly, loving God means loving people.
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Loving God means loving people.
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So this scribe asked Jesus for one.
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Do you notice that?
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He's like, which commandment is most important in Jesus?
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Verse 31 says, "The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself." There's no other commandment greater than these.
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Like, "Well, I didn't ask for two, I only asked for one." Jesus said, "You're getting two." Why?
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Because the second one naturally flows from the first.
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1 John 4 says, "Whoever loves God must also love his brother." Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
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Like, "Well, look Pastor Jeff, God, to be honest with you, I hate a lot of people.
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John addresses that, 1 John 4, verse 20, says, "If you love God but hate your brother, you're a liar." That's what the Bible says.
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Nobody likes to be called a liar.
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So I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that the Bible is calling you a liar.
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If you claim that you love God, but you hate people, God says that doesn't work.
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As Jesus was pointing out here, one flows from the other.
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In other words, if you don't love people, you don't love God.
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You're like, well, love people how?
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Well, what did Jesus say?
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Again, quoting from Leviticus 19.18, how do you love people?
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The second is this, Jesus said, you shall love your neighbor.
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What are the next two words?
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Go ahead, say it out.
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What are the next two words?
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You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
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You love yourself.
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You do.
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You're like, "I hate myself." No, you don't.
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You don't know me, man.
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We just met.
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I hate myself.
33:32-33:33
I think I'm a loser.
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There's nothing good about me.
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It's no wonder nobody likes me.
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I hate myself.
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No, you don't.
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Yes, I do.
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I just told you that I do.
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No, you don't.
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The people that say, "I hate myself.
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I'm such a loser." The people that say those things, what are they focused on?
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Me.
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Me.
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Me.
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Me.
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Here's how I feel.
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people think about me. Here's how I feel." You're still giving yourself way too much attention, which is proof that you actually love yourself. If you really hated yourself, you wouldn't think so much about yourself. So let's dispel this notion why I hate myself.
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No you don't. No you do not. Who do you spend most of your time thinking about? Yourself.
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Whose happiness are you after?
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Yours.
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Whose feelings are you always contemplating?
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Yours.
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Who are you always trying to benefit?
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Yourself.
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You see, by nature, we have this thing in us where we want to take care of ourselves and look after ourselves.
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Jesus reminded us from Leviticus that we're to love our neighbors with the same care and attention that we would give to ourselves.
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I'm to love my neighbor with the same care and attention and detail and fervor and passion.
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I'm to go after that the way that I take care of myself.
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Loving God means loving people.
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And finally, I've got this down, knowing is not the same as doing.
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Knowing is not the same as doing.
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That's the greatest commandment Jesus gives him too.
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"The scribe said to him, 'You are right, teacher.
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You have truly said that He is one, and there is no other besides Him.
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And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself.'" That was a really good recap, buddy.
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He says, "is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
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That's a pretty significant statement that he made right there.
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Why?
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Where were they standing again?
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They were standing in the temple.
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And people were coming - it was Passover - people were coming and bringing all their animals and killing the animals and sprinkling the blood and burning the sacrifices.
36:15-36:18
And all this was happening in the midst of this conversation.
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And this guy says to Jesus, you know what?
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Loving God and loving people is so much more important this stuff that people have traveled for miles to do.
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Loving is more important.
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Look at what Jesus responds.
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When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." After that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.
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Notice Jesus says, "You're not far." He didn't say, "Congratulations, you've received the kingdom of God." He says you're not far.
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You're getting close.
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You're getting warmer.
36:57-37:00
You're not there, but you're heading in the right direction.
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So what makes the difference?
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This guy totally agreed with Jesus.
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Have we seen this yet?
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Like everybody else was pretty antagonistic.
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And Jesus addresses this guy.
37:13-37:22
This guy's like, "Dang, you're right!" Jesus says, "You're close." If he agreed with Jesus, why only close?
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Why not, you got it buddy, gold star, A plus.
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What's the problem?
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Problem is knowing is not the same as doing.
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That's the issue.
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I don't think it's a coincidence that this guy used a definite article.
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Did you see that?
37:52-37:56
I love Him with all the heart, all the understanding, all the strength.
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He didn't say "my." He kind of detached Himself.
38:01-38:05
Like if a person was to love God, these are the things that he should love God with.
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The heart, the soul.
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You see that?
38:10-38:15
Jesus says, "You're not far." Meaning, knowing is not the same as doing.
38:17-39:18
For my birthday, my wife for but this is what she got me my birthday this is called focus T25 like what is this well these are DVDs 25 is 25 minutes long these are 25 minute cardio exercises okay and they say with these discs you're going to be in the best shape of your life for only 25 minutes a day and I thought that is fantastic. So since she got these for me, most nights a week, I grab a bag of Doritos and a bottle of Pepsi and pop one of these monkeys into the DVR. I'll tell you what, this looks hard. I'm like, look at that guy. That guy's skinny and and his tongue's hanging on the floor, like this looks so hard to hang.
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I'm going to be honest with you.
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I really appreciated the gift.
39:25-39:26
But I'm still fat.
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I don't know if Aaron kept the receipt, but maybe we can get our money back.
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Because it ain't working.
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It's not working.
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And somebody lovingly came alongside of me said, "Pastor Jeff, you're supposed to do the exercises with the guy on TV." I'm like, "What a crummy gift." No, this is fantastic. It is. But you understand the point, right?
40:00-40:25
I can watch the exercises. I see how he does them. I see how he does them. And he's doing all these burpees and you know the what's it called the the inverted spoiled dog or whatever and the plank push-ups and all these crazy things. I see how he does them and I know the results that come from doing them.
40:26-40:36
But if I just pop those in and watch them, all I'm doing is getting some head knowledge on how the exercise works. But that's not going to be effective at all until what?
40:37-40:39
Until I put the Doritos down and get up and do them, right?
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And that's what Jesus was telling this guy.
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Look, knowing is not the same as doing.
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Having it in here is not the same as having it in here.
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That's the difference.
40:54-40:55
The man had the correct information.
40:56-40:58
Knowing is not the same as doing.
40:58-41:02
And kidding aside, church, this is so serious.
41:04-41:10
Because hell is full of people who are this close.
41:13-41:27
Hell is full of people who knew what the Bible said about Jesus, who knew what the Bible said about the cross and the resurrection and the call to follow Jesus and to embrace the eternal life that He gives.
41:27-41:30
They knew what it said, but they refused to do it.
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A good friend of mine said, "You know, some people miss heaven by about 12 inches, the distance from your head to your heart." And that's why Jesus gave a very loving word of affirmation/word of warning at the same time.
41:49-41:54
He says, "You're not far. You're close. You're not there.
41:57-41:58
that you're heading in the right direction.
42:01-42:03
That's why we preach God's Word.
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My job is to inform you about what the Bible says.
42:11-42:14
Your job is to evaluate yourself to say, "Did it get from here into here?
42:16-42:29
Does it show up here?" I want to ask if our prayer team would make their way forward, and our elders, If you would come up, and the worship team, we're going to invite you to pray.
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Our worship team is going to come in just a moment.
42:34-42:36
They're going to lead us in a closing song.
42:36-42:38
But I want to invite you to come and pray.
42:40-42:45
Is there someone here that knows what the Bible says, but has not been doing?
42:47-42:50
I know I should love God, but I have not been loving God.
42:53-42:56
Is there someone here that has not allowed God to be your very life?
42:58-42:59
You need to come up and pray.
43:00-43:13
Is there someone here that says, "You know what, I love God, but I'll be honest with you Pastor Jeff, I've been going through a season in my life where I have not been loving God with all of my heart." Maybe someone says, "I haven't been loving God with all of my soul.
43:14-43:16
I haven't been loving God with all of my mind.
43:16-43:24
I haven't been loving God with all of my strength." I'll be honest with you, I let one of those areas slip recently.
43:26-43:26
Come and pray.
43:26-43:27
This is a safe place.
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There's no judgment here.
43:29-43:30
There's no condemnation here.
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This is a place of love and prayer and encouragement.
43:37-43:51
Maybe there's someone here that claims to know God, that claims to love God, but you If you hate another person, the Bible says that's incompatible.
43:52-43:52
It's not working.
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Come and pray for God to change your heart towards that person.
43:58-44:06
If you have someone to pray for, if you have something to pray about, now is the time.
44:07-44:08
Come and pray.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Mark 12:28-34
Sum up: How would you describe to someone what it means to love God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength? What does it mean for EACH of these 4 things, and what does it mean for ALL of these 4 things (individually and corporately)?
Why did Jesus add "loving your neighbor" when the guy only asked for the greatest commandment? How do you love your neighbor as yourself?
Breakout Questions:
In which of the 4 areas (heart, soul, mind, strength = will, emotion, intellect, physically) do you struggle to love God the most?
