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The Fiddler on the Roof was a Broadway musical that became a hit movie. It’s about a Russian family with a husband and wife and 5 daughters. Tevye (Te-vee) the father is wrestling with the desire to keep alive his traditions in a changing world.
At one point in the musical, he turns to Golde (Gold-a) and sings, “Do you love me?” Her answer? Well, at first, she’s shocked he would ask such a thing.
Golde sings back,
Do I love you?
For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house
Given you children, milked the cow
After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?
But Tevye’s question is tapping into something. 25 years of sacrifice for each other is no small thing. Living with each and raising each other is no small thing.
Love in a marriage has to have sacrifice for the other or it’s not real love.
But all that sacrifice for the other can also be done in a way that’s cold, dutiful, and lifeless. Marital love is more than sacrifice, even if the sacrifice must be there.
Love in a marriage must also involve our affections, our heart, our passion. There’s a reason why Song of Solomon is in our Bible’s and not just Ephesians 5.
Our love for God is the same. There must be sacrifice! But it’s more than sacrifice. It’s also about a heart for God, affection for God, a true love for God.
Today and in two more sermons we’ll unpack what it means to love God. What it means to love God with all our HEART, all our MIND, and all our STRENGTH.
These sermons are part of our annual Vision series. Every September we take a few weeks to revisit the vision and values of Cornerstone. Or a key theme for the year. Our core values are in our lobby: Sound doctrine, Spirit-filled, relationships, spiritual growth. And we know that when those things are in place, evangelism and mission happen.
This year we’re thinking about church vision, which is to love God, love one another, and love our neighbor. Our vision is our direction, our aspiration, the thing we’re moving toward. It’s more a direction than a destination.
This year we want to focus on loving God. We’ll take three sermons to unpack Mark 12:30. Read Mark 12:30.
This morning we will think about what it means to “love God with all our heart.” Next week, “all our mind.” And then, “all our strength.”
Sermon: “Love God with all your heart!” We’ll look at three questions:
First, we want to get a sense of this passage in its context here in the Gospel of Mark.
The setting: Tuesday of the most important week of all of human history.
On this Tuesday there is an Olympic sized battle between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. Throughout the day, question after question. That night, the Olivet Discourse to discuss the destruction of Jerusalem and Jesus’s eventual return.
Right in the middle of this melee is this question from a scribe. Like Ezra the scribe before him, a scribe is a specialist in the Law of Moses. He had been listening to the verbal battles. And now he’s drawn to Jesus himself.
He asks him a question. It’s a good question! Not just a party game.
Rabbis said the Law of Moses had 613 commandments of 365 prohibitions + 248 positive commands.
It simply isn’t possible to treat 613 commandments equally and faithfully. Some arrangement of greater and lesser, or “heavier” and “lighter” as the Pharisees would say, was necessary.
The “first” (Grk., prōtē) or “most important commandment” is found in Deuteronomy 6. Not the Ten Commandments. Not anything given at Mt. Sinai with the initial giving of the Law of Moses.
The “most important commandment” is given later in what we call “Deuteronomy,” when Israel is about to cross into Canaan and take possession of the promised land—the land promised to Abraham 500 years earlier.
God speaks to his people what became known as the Shema. Named after the first word in Hebrew: “Hear!” (Shema).
Faithful Jews at this time would have begun and ended their day by speaking the Shema. Jesus using the Shema as the answer to this question was not only correct, but it also established his credibility among conscientious Jews—like this scribe.
Deuteronomy 6:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Deut 6:4–7)
Not only must “YOU” do it, but you are to teach your children “diligently,” so that they might do it, too.
This idea of loving God “with all your heart” is found throughout Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy 10:
“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deut 10:12)
Deuteronomy 11:
“And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil.” (Deut 11:13-14)
“To love” and “serve the LORD your God” with “all your heart and with all your soul,” that’s what God is commanding.
Jesus goes to Deuteronomy 6:5 for the “most important” commandment. And then he quotes Leviticus 19:18 to quote “the second” commandment, “love your neighbor as yourself. No commandments are “greater than these.”
The scribe agrees and says Jesus is “right.” He adds his own commentary saying these two commandments are “much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:33).
This is not reading something into the Old Testament that isn’t already there. It is reading the Old Testament according to what is there!
Hosea 6:
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hos 6:6)
Jesus himself will quote Hosea 6:6 twice in his ministry—Matt. 9:13; 12:7.
“Steadfast love” and “the knowledge of God” are more important than sacrifices and burnt offerings!!! – That’s the Old Testament, not Jesus!
***That’s why we never want to put Jesus and the Old Testament as if they’re on opposite sides. So often what Jesus is doing is simply giving us the accurate interpretation of the Old Testament.
Way back in the Shema of Deuteronomy 6, we’re told that to love God with all our heart is the “most important commandment.”
Application: Read the Old Testament according to this “most important commandment.”
Well, now we know what the “most important commandment” is, but what does it mean to love God “with all your heart”?
This verse in Deuteronomy and in the Synoptic gospels is used a half-dozen times. With a variety of terms: Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your understanding, all your strength, all your power. The one word that is common in all the variations of this verse is “heart.”
“Heart” from the Greek kardia. Why is a cardiologist called a cardiologist? Like the dad said in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”: All words come from the Greeks! In this case, he was right. A “cardiologist” is a specialist of the “heart,” the kardia.
We tend to separate our “heart” from our “mind”: our “heart” feels, our “mind” thinks.”
Biblically, “the heart” is more ambiguous. It’s the internal, non-physical part of us, just like today when we speak of our “heart.” But what it actually does is more diverse.
At times, the heart “thinks.”
Matthew 9:
But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? (Matt 9:4)
At times, it’s the emotional center.
Psalm 16:
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure. (Ps 16:9)
In our passage, with “heart,” “soul,” and “mind” all mentioned, it’s not wrong to think of it as the center of our will and emotions. The very core of who we are and what we are.
Proverbs 4:
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. (Prov 4:23)
What does it mean to love God “with ALL your heart”?
There’s nothing halfway about it. It’s not “50% for God, 50% for me.” We love him with our WHOLE heart, our COMPLETE heart, our ENTIRE heart.
This is not a tithing situation, where we give 10% to God and keep 90%, but that 10% is a statement that it all belongs to God. With our “heart” it’s different. We give it all without exception. We give 100% to him.
There is to be no rival in our hearts for the love we have for God. Even the closest family members are not to rival our love for God.
Jesus even uses the language of “hatred” to speak of our other loves.
Luke 14:
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)
Now, in other passages we’re commanded to honor our parents, to love our wives and children, and take care of our families. But Jesus is speaking of a comparison here. Compared to our love for God, it’s as if we “hate” everyone and everything else.
Now, the truth is, something happens when we love God above everyone and everything else. Our love for other people grows, it doesn’t shrink. We love our parents better and our spouse better and our children better and all people better. We don’t love them less, we actually love them more.
It doesn’t work that way with anyone else, though. If I love a single person so much more than others that it’s like I hate all others, my love shrinks. It becomes corrupt and distorted and something opposite to love.
God is the only being in the world where all things in our life improve and all relationships improve if we give him EVERYTHING without any exceptions.
God and God alone can require appropriately that the whole creation be dedicated to his own glory. And everything flourishes that makes God first above all else.
But if you try to put anything else in that place of first allegiance, it becomes a cancer that destroys and spreads and ruins everything it touches.
Jesus was asked what is the “most important commandment,” but he answered by giving two commands. One he labelled “first” and “most important,” the other he labelled “second” (Mark 12:31).
My “first” love is to shape my “second” love. We let God teach us how to love everything else. We let God’s Word teach us what love is and what love requires.
We make sure that all those “second” loves don’t steal us away from our “first” love.
Herman Bavinck:
Viewed properly, there is only one duty, that of love, which is the fulfillment of the law (Rom 13:10). And there actually is only one object of that love—namely, God. Everything else—people, angels, nature, art, and so forth—may and must be loved only in God and for God. The sole end of all things—ourselves, our neighbors, the state, and the like—is God’s glory.
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Ethics[1]
For some of you, maybe what we’re talking about here is being proven in your life in a negative way. You don’t love God. You’re separated from God. You live as if God doesn’t exist and isn’t worth placing at the center of your life.
But your life is proving that when you do that, things get worse, not better. It’s like you have the spokes of a wheel without the hub. Nothings working right.
You haven’t turned to God and bowed before him as your Lord and King. Remember Jesus's words to the scribe: "You are not far from the kingdom of God." The good news is, that's always true! It's always the case that we are not far from the kingdom of God. We enter by repentance and faith, so all we ever need to do, wherever we are, is repent and believe—and then the blessings of the kingdom, especially the King himself, are ours!
If that’s you, repent. Turn and acknowledge your sinfulness. You haven’t loved him like you should. Or others. Cry out for forgiveness. And…receive it! That’s what Jesus’s death is all about—forgiveness for believing sinners.
In the next two sermons we’ll think about loving God with our mind (John) and with our obedience (me). That’s part of loving God with our whole being.
But here we want to focus on loving God with our affections.
We don’t love him only with our affections. Love for God must be more than our affections. But it’s not less.
We hear this throughout the Psalms:
Psalm 16:
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Ps 16:11)
Psalm 27:
One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. (Ps 27:4)
Psalm 37:
“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps 37:4).
But also, in the New Testament in Philippians 3:
I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. (Phil 3:8)
All throughout the Bible, those who know God love God. And those who love God, love him with their emotions and affections. It is more than just emotional or sentimental love. But if our emotions are not at all involved it’s something far less than loving God with all our heart.
Jesus is commanding us to love God with our “WHOLE heart.” But we know that our love is inconsistent. It’s hot and cold. It rises and falls. We get distracted.
How can grow in our love for God? How do grow in our affection for God?
Deuteronomy 30:
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. (Deut 30:6)
1 John 4:
We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
We can’t manufacture our love for God. God must put it there to begin with.
In this case, what’s true at the beginning is always true. God plants the seed of love in our hearts. And then God makes it grow.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Gal 5:22–23)
We will work to grow in our love for God! But we work knowing that it’s the Spirit who does the critical work in our hearts. Part of the Spirit’s ongoing work in our hearts is to produce more “love”—more love for God and for our neighbors.
So…we pray!!!
Joel 2:
“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” (Joel 2:12)
When you become aware, repent. Confess your lack of love to the Lord. Pray for more of his love.
It’s true for almost everyone, but especially for God: the more we know him, the more we love him. Jesus said, “To know you is eternal life” (John 17:3).
Study the attributes of God. Meditate on what the Bible says is true of God. Read books about God.
Recommendation: A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy – copies on the stage. Read a couple pages a day. It’ll take you a couple months to read. For a book like this, we don’t want to read it too fast. Read, think, pray.
Revelation 2 (to the church in Ephesus):
I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. (Rev 2:2–5)
“Remember therefore from where you have fallen.” What God did to save you!
To grow in your love for God:
Tevye sang to his wife, “Do you love me?” In some ways, Jesus is asking us that same question: “Do you love me? Do you love me with your whole heart?”
Tevye wasn’t the first person to ask that question. Jesus actually did ask someone that question.
[Jesus] said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:17)
Why was he “grieved”? Because not long before this, Peter had denied Christ three times. At the moment of Jesus’s greatest need, Peter denied him. He denied even knowing him.
Peter’s love for Jesus was imperfect and needed to grow—but it was also a true love. His response was as true as it was honest: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
He did love Jesus—but he was also a man in the process of becoming more holy.
What is the Lord asking of you?
“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.” (Mark 12:30)
[1] Bavinck, Reformed Ethics, 2.101.
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