Would you take your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel of Mark, Chapter Twelve? Shall we bow and pray? Father, we thank You that You are a marvelous God. We have a wonderful Savior. We cannot comprehend the beauty and glory of Jesus Christ and the salvation we have through Him. The Lord, we pray that You might teach us this morning from the Word of God and challenge our hearts we might learn a bit more to love you as we ought to. So instruct us, Lord, and blessed by your Spirit, we pray that Christ might be glorified. We ask in his name. Amen. Mark, chapter 12. Would you look with me at verses 29, 30? I read, starting with verse 28, one of the scribes came And having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. You have some sheets in your bulletin you can use as guides. And I put some of the verses there as well, so that since we'll be a little bit pressed for time, you can just look at the verses there, and that'll be faster than looking up in your Bible. But I want us to consider this passage this morning. Here is a young man, a Bible student, a scribe calls him. And he comes to Jesus with a question. He's trying to grasp spiritual issues. And so he asks Him, Lord, what is the first commandment? And Jesus said, without hesitating, the first commandment is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. The first commandment. First in number. When Moses got the Ten Commandments there on Mount Sinai, the first one is, Thou shalt have no other god before me. In other words, don't love anything else or anyone else more than me. And when you come to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 6, where the Ten Commandments are reviewed, we call it the Creed of Israel, Hear, O Lord, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." And so, in both those recitations of the law, loving God is first, foremost. First in number, and also first in importance. A couple weeks back, my wife and I were going to make some beef stew. Now, it does not take rocket science to make beef stew. You take some beef and some vegetables and throw them in a pot and cook them, and you've got beef stew. But I said, maybe we're missing something. We'd better check anyway. So I took out the cookbook and opened it up to the page about making beef stew. And it said, first, put in the beef. Well, that was pretty profound, I thought. But anyway, that's the most important thing in beef stew, I guess, is the beef. And so this is the first commandment, not only in number, but first in importance. And oftentimes we forget that. What's really important? Is it having a good time? Is making money, is that really important in your life? Or saving the environment? Or producing social justice, whatever that is? No, no. It's loving God. With all our heart. and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength. Loving God with all your heart, that involves the emotions. Loving Him emotionally with all our soul, that involves the inner desire to please Him. I want to please God because I love Him. With all our mind, to think about Him, the one that we love. And with all our strength, to endeavor with all our energy. to serve Him, loving the Lord with all our hearts. Now, I wonder, is that where you are, loving the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind and strength? I would have to say I surely fall far short of that. We sang a song this morning, Oh, How I Love Jesus, and that sings nice. How true is that in our lives, in your life? How much do we really love God? How much of our heart and soul and mind and strength is occupied in loving Him? Well, oftentimes we can go hours without giving God a thought. Sometimes we can talk to many people about many things and never mention God. And we can get ourselves busy with things So busy with so many things, we only have a few minutes to talk to God, loving God like we should. It's kind of like we take God and put Him on the back shelf of our life, and then on Sunday morning we get Him out for a little while and then put Him back on the shelf, and don't give Him much thought until the next Sunday. God wrote to the church in Laodicea, and said, I have somewhat against you, because you've left your first love. I wish that you were cold or hot, but because you're lukewarm, I will spew thee out of my mouth. And later on, he said, Jesus said, in the last days, because iniquity shall abound, the love of many will wax cold. And I wonder if he's talking about us. Our love is lukewarm. Our love is waxing cold. We ought to love the Lord with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. The greatest priority we have in our life should be to love God. And if we love Him, then our greatest desire would be to obey Him. And if we love Him, our greatest pursuit would be to know Him. And our greatest pleasure would be to fellowship with Him. And our greatest interest would be to think on Him. And our greatest privilege would be to serve Him. And our greatest goal would be to please Him. And our greatest joy would be to praise Him. And our greatest attitude would be to trust Him. Psalm 40, verse 4 says, Blessed is the man whose Lord is their trust. How wonderful to trust God. about how much do we love God. If we love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, sometimes we have very little evidence to show that we love Him at all. Tell me, what in your life this morning shows that we love God at all? What's there? You say, well, I get myself to church about every Sunday morning. I love God. Is that the best evidence we have? Is that the only part of proof that we would have that we love God? What does it mean to love God? How can we tell and analyze if we really love God? How do we measure our love for God? Well, let's take the human example. Take a young fellow, falls in love with a young girl. And how could you tell he was in love with her? Well, several things. First of all, he would be thinking about her. Oh, I wonder what she's doing. I wonder if I will be able to come over to her house after work. Will I be able to call her up this evening? Will we have time to go have some ice cream? And he loves her, so he's thinking about her. How much do we think about the Lord? The psalmist said, I've set the Lord always before me. He said, He is my meditation day and night. How much, how often do we really think about the Lord? Well, this young man thinks about her, and you would notice that he wants to be with her. He wants to go see her, wants to spend time with her, go somewhere with her, and be with her. And that's the way it is. He wants to be with her. He loves her. In college, Last year of college, my wife and I were engaged to be married. And we both lived in the college dorms, Christian College. And she worked, had a little job in the afternoons on the other side of town. And so she got out of school before I did. So she would walk to work. And then afterwards, I would walk halfway across town so I could walk back to the dorm with her. Now, this is Minnesota. When on a good day in the winter, it's 20 below zero. and snowing, and the winds blowing. Why go to all that trouble in that kind of conditions? Well, love to her wanted to be with her. That's what love is. And how much desire do we have to spend time with God? How much do we have just five minutes in the morning and that's it? Is that all the time we have for God? Well, going back to this young man again, he also would want to please her, take her somewhere that she will enjoy, get her a gift that she will like, give her a compliment to make her feel good, always thinking of ways to please her and make her happy. But how concerned are we about pleasing God? Jesus said to his father, I come to do thy will. Paul said, we ought to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. And John said, we do always those things that are pleasing to Him. Do we please the Lord? Is the Lord pleased with the way we treat other people? Is the Lord pleased with what we watch on television? Is the Lord pleased with the things that we think about? If we loved Him, would we not want to please Him? in every way possible. And going back to this young man once more, he wants to know her better. He wants to spend time talking to her and getting to know her better. What does she like? What kind of foods does she like? What's her family like? What sports does she like? What habits does she have? What interests does she have and all the rest? He wants to know more about her because he loves her. You know, Paul loved the Lord, and he said, My goal is that I may know Him. How well do you know the Lord? How much desire do we have to know the Lord better? Do you study your Bible about the Lord? Do you like to listen to a sermon when you can? Do you read the Scriptures to get to know Him better? Do you pray that God would give you more understanding of Him? Well, when you see a young man in love, it's usually pretty obvious. But how obvious is it to the world around us that we love God? Can they tell? Is there anything they can see in our lives that shows that we love the Lord? There should be. Maybe we ought to ask this question, why should we love the Lord? Why is that important? Well, the book of Ephesians, Chapter 2, read that verse for you, Ephesians, Chapter 2, verse 4. Paul says it this way. Ephesians 2, 4, Paul says, but God, who is rich in mercy for His great love, wherewith He loved us. Oh, God loved us, loves us. Though we are sinners, He loves us. gave His life for us, saved us, given us a place in heaven, created us for good works. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God commendeth His love toward us in the well we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. Oh, how God loves us. He watches over us. He helps us. He answers our prayers. He restores us. He leads us. John says we love Him because He first loved us. He loads us with blessings. He prepares a place for us in glory. He takes us to heaven to see His glory someday, and all the wonderful ways that He loves us and shows His love to us every day. So how can we do less than love Him? And how can we love Him so little when He loves us so much? You see, we have the privilege of being children of the great God of the universe, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is our Father and we are His children. He's the all-wise and all-powerful God. He saved us by His grace, but how little we love Him. When was the last time you really felt in your heart that you loved God and told Him so? Does that happen? We ought to love Him because He loves us. We ought to love Him because it's the right thing to do. We ought to love Him because He commands us to. Isn't that what our text said? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. That's personal. Thou, you, you and me. Each one of us. And shalt love the Lord. Not might or think about it or consider it. But we ought to love Him. And not love Him just a little once in a while. We love Him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. Well, that's a great commandment, to love God. And that's our greatest responsibility, is to love God. And too often, that's our greatest failure. We really fail to love God. Every day, He blesses us with all the tokens of His love. And most days, to be honest, we hardly think of Him at all. Why don't we love God as we should? Well, several suggestions on your sheet there. Sometimes it's because we love our possessions so much. Matthew 6, 24, Jesus said, No man can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot love God and mammon, that is, your riches. your money, your bank account, but how often do we get so engrossed in those things, we think a whole lot more about that than we do about God. Maybe we can't love God because we love ourselves. That's built into our sinful nature, you know, self-love. And in 2 Timothy, Paul says, in the last days, men shall be lovers of their own selves. Oh, how much time and effort we spend taking care of ourselves. How much of our time and effort do we spend loving God? Not very much. And perhaps we don't love God as we should because we love our pleasures. 2 Timothy, he says, in those last days, men will be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Oh, I would don't know for a fact, but I would expect there's probably a whole lot of Christian people over spring break or sometime have the money to go to Disney World, and so they didn't have enough money to give God His time. Or how many people would be so occupied in the basketball playoffs, they have little time to consider God's Word. Love pleasure is more than God. And perhaps we don't love God as we should because we love the world. 1 John 2, 15, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. But oh, how it's so easy for us to fall in love with the world. We love the music of the world. We love the styles of the world. We love the entertainment of the world. We need to reevaluate our priorities and ask ourselves, how much do we really love God? Well, what are the reasons for loving God? Why should we love God? Note the suggestions on your sheet there, first of all. Loving God brings His blessings. He said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love Him and observe His commandments. God has His mercies, keeps His covenant with those who love Him. And by all God's mercies, Paul said, I beseech you, by the mercies of God, ye present yourselves a living sacrifice to God. God's mercies ought to inspire us. challenge us to love God, and that brings His blessings. And secondly, loving God helps us to understand God's program. Sometimes we get confused. Why does this happen? Why does that happen? Why doesn't God do so and so? Paul says in Romans 8, 28, we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. If we love God, you see, we cannot fret and worry about what God is doing in our lives. We say God knows. God loves us. God has the best for us. And that's why He's doing these things in my life. And it gives us understanding and acceptance of God's program if we love Him. These things are for those who love God. Thirdly, third advantage of loving God is it removes fear. Oh, how often our lives are filled with fear. Worry about this and worry about that. What might happen? Apostle John says, there's no fear in love. But perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. Oh, you see, if we really loved God, we could trust Him. God isn't going to do something that's harmful to us. God isn't going to forget about us. God is not going to abandon us. There's nothing we need to fear. If God is with us, who can be against us? God will work out His purposes for us because He loves us. And if we love Him, all that fear flies away because we love Him and trust Him, the one who loves us, and we love Him. Fourthly, if we're loving God, It helps us love other people. 1 John 4, 21, this commandment have we from Him that he who loveth God love his brother also. You see, if we love God, we have to love the people that love God, the others that love God. We have to love the people that God loves. And so we can't be angry, hating our brothers and sisters in Christ if we love God. No, if we love Him, His love will be shed abroad in our hearts to love them as well. Fifthly, loving God brings eternal rewards. No other means can get you to heaven. That's already settled if you love God. But James 1.12, Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to them that love him. That's an eternal reward. I don't know what those rewards are going to be in heaven. They're referred to as crowns. What they will be, I don't know, but they'll be wonderful and they'll be glorious. And they are there for those who really love God. Eternal rewards. How much rewards will we have for our love for God in eternity? And sixthly, loving God gives us promise of eternal glory. 1 Corinthians 2.19, Paul says, that is, as it is written, I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the hearts of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. Oh, the things that God has prepared for those who love Him. We can't even understand them, we can't comprehend them, but God has wonderful things prepared in heaven for those who love Him. You say, well, wait a minute, won't everybody see the good things in heaven? Won't everyone see the wonders and glories of heaven? Won't everyone enjoy them? Yes, I'm sure everyone will. But you know, some might enjoy them more than others. Many years ago, we had a dear old lady in the church here, her name was Molly. She was the first resident of the manor. And she was a fine old Christian woman, but she couldn't see very much. Couldn't see much past the end of her nose. And on the 4th of July, we sometimes would get all the senior citizens together and take them down to Lake, not Lake Opeka, but Oakton College to see the fireworks. And we'd take Molly off. And the fireworks would be going up there, reds and blues and all those beautiful things. And Molly would be looking over this way. And we'd say, Molly, aren't they beautiful? Oh, they're so nice, you know. And even if she'd been looking this way, she might have seen a little blue or red light in the sky, but she couldn't see all the glories of those fireworks because she just didn't have the eyes to see them. And I suppose maybe in heaven, Maybe some will be able to see the glories of God more clearly. Those will be there for everyone to see, but maybe some can see them better than others, those who love God. Well, what a wonderful thing to be able to love God and to see His glories someday. Well, so we need to ask ourselves, do we love God? How much do we love God? What's the evidence that we love God? Maybe we need to reevaluate our priorities. How important is God to us? How much do we really love God? Can we even begin to say, we love the Lord with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength? We should, but I doubt that we do. Shall we bow together in prayer? As we bow in prayer, let me ask you, would you take time to evaluate your love of God? Oh, most of you here are believers of trust. You know God, and I know you love Him, but how much do we love Him? Does our love for God occupy our thoughts and show up in our actions, take our interests, make it a top priority? evaluate, would you? Do you love God as you should? Maybe that's something you need to get right with God and say, Lord, I'm sorry my love is so shallow, so little. Help me to love you as I ought to love, Lord. And you need to say that to God this morning. Heads bowed, together, eyes closed. But would you be willing to say that to God? Just by lifting your hand, you'd be saying to God, yes, Lord, I don't love You as I should, but help me to do that. Help me to love You more. Would you do that, anyone? Yes. Are there others? Yes. Lord bless you. Others? You love God as you should. Father, we thank You that You loved us and sent Your Son, that You've given us so many blessings. And yet, Lord, sometimes our lives get so shallow and so occupied with other things. We don't love You as we should. Lord, we pray to You. I teach us to love Thee as we ought to. Strengthen our love for Thee. Kindle within our hearts a greater love for You, for Yourself, for all You've done for us, for Your Son and for our glory ahead. Pray for each one, Lord, that has a desire. Give them a greater, a strengthening of their love for Thee by Your grace, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.