Watch our Livestream 10am Sundays at 10am on Sundays Give Online
“If you’re able, please stand.” Read Mark 12:28–34. “Thanks be to God.”
“One day you’re going to wake up tired, and it’s never going to go away” – A middle-aged older brother of someone in our church shared that bit of wisdom years ago. It’s stuck with me!
Some of us can relate. We’ve hit that point in our lives!
But for others in our church, it’s a matter of circumstances. We’re tired, and it’s a direct result of our circumstances. We’re in a season of caring for someone and it feels like it’s literally 24-7.
Caring for someone at the beginning of life or at the end of life can be that all-consuming. A mother of a newborn discovers it’s an all-night task and not just an all-day one. Caring for someone in their final years has that same intensity and 24-7 quality. You are pouring yourself out for someone else in a sacrifice of love.
Seasons of our work life can bring exhaustion. Deadlines are looming, the jobs are piling up, and the only solution you can see is to work a lot more hours. Providing for your family seems to require the extra work.
In these scenarios you are giving your “strength” to a purpose or to a person.
Others of you aren’t working much at all. I don’t mean those trying hard to find work. I mean those who have plenty of work, but they just aren’t doing it. They turn to distractions and gaming instead of the work in front of them.
Our passage speaks to both sets of people—those who are working really hard and those who aren’t.
But it deals with the issue of work by looking upward at our love for God. We are to love God with all our strength—with all our work.
The series is our September vision series. The topic this year is Loving God. Three great loves represent our vision: Love God, love one another in the church, love your neighbor outside the church. We’re focusing on loving God this year.
We’ve been looking at Mark 12:28–34. This conversation takes place on the Tuesday before Jesus dies in April, AD 33. On this particular Tuesday, Jesus is tested again and again by the Jewish leaders of the day. In our passage, the test comes from “a scribe.”
Like Ezra the famous scribe in the Old Testament, a scribe is “skilled in the Law of Moses,” “a man learned in matters of the commandments of the LORD and his statutes for Israel” (Ezra 7:6, 11).
This specialist in the law of Moses comes to Jesus and poses his question: “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
Jesus’s answer was the Shemah, quoting the fifth book of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6:4–5. Read Mark 12:29–30. Loving God is “the most important commandment.”
In this series we’re highlighting different facets of what it means to love God, but it’s really one thing being asked of us: to love God with ALL that we are. Giving our whole self to love God. Every part of us—mind, will, emotions, bodies, wealth, time, relationships, everything—is to be used in loving God.
We’ve highlighted loving God “with all your heart”—with our affections, loving him from the very core of our being. And last week it was loving God “with all your mind”—using our mind well in love for him and using our mind to know and pursue him. Reading the book of his Word, and the book of his World.
This morning we’re thinking about loving God “with all your strength.”
Our Sermon: Love God with all your strength! (1) Love God with the Strength that God gives; (2) Love God with a Strength that Works; (3) Love God a the Strength that Rests.
Prayer
Again, when Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was, he quoted the Shema from Deuteronomy 6. The Shema is named for the first word in Hebrew, “Shema,” translated, “Hear!”: “Hear, O Israel!”
In Daniel Block’s commentary on Deuteronomy, he reflects on God’s call to love him “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut 6:5). He says the point is less about distinctions between these ideas and more about the totality represented.
But then he unpacks what it means to love God “with all your might” or “all your strength” like in our passage. He says it doesn’t mean physical strength but more like “substance,” loving God with “all that one claims as one’s own.” Or, loving God with all that is ours. That includes “physical strength, but [it’s] also economic or social strength, and it may extend to the physical things an Israelite owned: tools, livestock, a house, and the like.”[1]
We can see this lived out with King Josiah, the last good king of Israel. He reigns over Judah for 31 years. After him there would be only bad kings and then Nebuchadnezzar would sack Jerusalem.
“Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.” (2 Kgs 23:25)
How do we know that King Josiah “turned to the LORD” in this way? It wasn’t just because he had a heart to please the LORD. He also lived it out in a very public and outward manner. He loved God “with all his might” as King of Judah:
His faith was not a private faith that he kept out of his day job. He did his day job as a king as an expression of his faith.
He wasn’t perfect. His death was avoidable and the result of a reckless decision on his part.
But when God’s Word sums up his life, he is identified as one who “turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might.”
******But when King Josiah loved God “with all his might,” it was God who gave him that “might.”
Now, throughout Josiah’s life there were moments when Josiah chose to love God with his resources and life. At these times his heart and mind were fully engaged. He wasn’t a robot performing these actions.
But beneath these was the grace of God working in his life, changing him, affecting him, even putting those desires into him.
We are to love God with all our strength. But the Bible makes it clear that we love God with the strength that God gives. Just as we love, because he first loved us (1 John 4:19); so loving God is loving him with the strength that he gives to us.
1 Peter 4—same word for “strength” (Grk., ischus) as Mark 12:30, 33:
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength (ischus) that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Pet 4:10–11)
Speaking fits and serving gifts. Both come from God. If we’re serving, we’re serving with “the strength that God supplies.”
Philippians 4—verbal form of the same word (Grk., ischuō):
I can do all things through him who strengthens (ischuō) me. (Phil 4:13)
Ephesians 2 brings it all together:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Eph 2:10)
Application: Remember the source of your strength…
Loving God with all our strength means loving God with the strength that works.
Love for God is a doing kind of love. It is a working kind of love. It isn’t passive or invisible.
Just like all true love. If I told you I really, really loved my wife, but there was no discernible action or word that ever indicated I loved her, you would say, “No, you don’t.”
If I never remembered Anne’s birthday or our anniversary, never thanked her for things she does, never complimented her, never practically served her, you would rightly say, “You don’t love her. You think you do, but you don’t.”
Love begins in the heart. But if love is love, it won’t stay there.
Daniel Block:
True spirituality arises from the heart and extends to all of life. Those who claim to be religious tend to be subject to two temptations: either to treat spirituality as primarily interior and private, or to treat it as a matter of external performance. True love for God is rooted in the heart, but it is demonstrated in life.
Daniel Block, Deuteronomy[2]
Jesus says in Matthew 12:
“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Matt 12:34)
Our love for God must overflow into work we do for God and his people and his glory.
Colossians 3:
Whatever you do, work heartily (lit., out of your soul), as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. (Col 3:23–24)
If it’s caring for a newborn in the first years of his life. Or caring for someone in the last years of her life, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.
These are sacred tasks. Holy tasks. Important tasks. This is work that is invisible to most people. But not to the Lord.
Spend your life for the benefit of others. That’s what we are to do.
We do this out of love for our neighbors, but it’s also loving God with all our strength. When we love God with all our strength, the people around us flourish.
Loving God with all our strength and laziness don’t go together.
The God over all our work is the God who directs us and commands us.
John 14:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)
Love and obedience are inseparable. This is because our love for God is love for a King and Lord and God. He’s not a peer. Not a consultant we can ignore or fire.
There are a lot of people and things we can love where obedience is not required. That’s true for most people and most things: you can love sports, but you don’t “obey” sports; you can love Mediterranean food, but you don’t “obey” Mediterranean food.
But with God, it doesn’t work that way. You can’t say you love God and ignore his commandments. Our obedience is imperfect, yes! But if we’re going to love God with all our strength, that will mean we devote our “strength” to obedience.
Jesus’s words: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15).
Martin Luther
In the early 1520s, Martin Luther had a season of enormous productivity. He was beginning to get clarity on what the gospel is and what the church is to be. He was loving God with his mind in a feverish manner. He was loving God with his strength, too, using his time and energy and writing abilities and relationships to see God’s name exalted and the gospel proclaimed.
He was working long hours, laboring with people and with the Roman Catholic Church to see it “Reformed.”
One of the books he wrote in these years of hard work is called, The Freedom of the Christian Man (1520). He captures something of the spirit of loving God with a strength that works:
“A Christian man is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”
Martin Luther, The Freedom of the Christian Man[3]
Being “servant of all, subject to all” as one “subject to none”—that will result in loving God with a strength that works.
But along with that was a good reminder:
“Good works do not make a man good, but a good man does good works.”
Martin Luther, The Freedom of the Christian Man[4]
Our hard work for God is not what makes us “good.” God has saved us and made us “good,” so we will do our hard work for God.
Application: Self-evaluation for whether we’re loving God with all our strength.
Loving God with all our strength means doesn’t mean we won’t rest, though. Loving God as the Bible teaches also means loving God with the strength that rests.
God models this for us at the Creation of the world. After six days of work that brings the universe into being, “he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done” (Gen 2:2).
God’s rest becomes the model for his people in the Old Testament.
Exodus 20 in the 4th commandment:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exod 20:8–11)
But when Jesus comes we see a change with the Sabbath in a couple of ways.
First, the accent changes. The Sabbath of the Old Testament is a combination of physical rest from our work and also giving time to the Lord in worship. Benjamin preached on Psalm 92 recently, which in the caption is called “A Song for the Sabbath.” So, we know worship was part of the Old Testament Sabbath.
But the accent in the Old Testament was physical rest. You see that in the 4th commandment we read. There’s no mention of worship. And in most of the occurrences of the word in the Old Testament, the accent is rest, not worship.
But in the New Testament the accent is on worship, the gathering of the people of God to worship together, pray together, celebrate the Lord’s Supper together. There’s some mention of physical rest, like in Hebrews 4, but the accent of the weekly rhythm for God’s people is on worship.
The second change that happens to the Sabbath is that God’s people go from an emphasis on the 7th day to an emphasis on Sunday, the 1st day, the Lord’s Day. Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday, and the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost on a Sunday. From that point on, God’s people have worshiped on Sunday. This isn’t a law, but it’s a pattern Christians have maintained since the New Testament.
Loving God with all of our strength doesn’t mean working 24-7, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, exhausting ourselves with labor and activity.
The Sabbath reminds us that we are to build into our lives rhythms of work and rest. Sometimes we don’t have much control over this. But as much as we can control it, every week we should pull away from our work for REST and WORSHIP.
This is also true with each day. Each day should have its own rhythms of work and rest, work and worship. These are very personal.
There should be an end to your workday, and an end to your work week.
There’s another side of loving God with a strength that rests: we physically rest, yes; but there’s also resting in Christ and the Holy Spirit. We rest in Christ even while we work for Christ.
Psalm 127 teaches this resting:
Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep. (Ps 127:1–2)
We are to be faithful and diligent in our work—but knowing the LORD MUST “build the house” and “watch over the city.”
We work hard, but we work hard resting in the fact God is doing the real work. Without his work, our work accomplishes nothing. Nothing!
A bunch of you ran a cross country meet yesterday. Some strong legs and strong lungs! A lot of these young stallions collapsed when they crossed the finished line. But they were running a lot faster than the group of us watching could run!
It’s a reminder of when the Bible talks about warriors and their “great strength.” But the Bible warns us not to trust in the physical strength of warriors.
Psalm 33:
The king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength (Grk., ischus).
17 The war horse is a false hope for salvation,
and by its great might it cannot rescue.
18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
19 that he may deliver their soul from death
and keep them alive in famine. (Ps 33:16–19)
Application: Some of you are involved with work you can’t really get out of. For you, maybe you can’t really adjust your workday or workweek too much.
But you can rest in Christ while you work. Be the one who “fears him,” “who hopes in his steadfast love.” Be that person, and see God bring his deliverance.
Lift up those spontaneous prayers throughout your day:
Those prayers take less than 10 seconds. But they can help you center your heart, center your mind.
Love God with all your strength.
Questions for self-evaluation:
The prime example for us is Jesus Christ himself. He is the perfect worker, faithful in all things as a Son to the Father, as a Servant to the King. No one ever worked harder. No one ever worked better.
John 4:
“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” (John 4:34)
It was his “food,” his delight. Ultimately that “work” meant a cross for sinners like us. The work given to him was to sacrifice his life to save sinners. To pay the price our sin required.
John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
Of all the work you can do, the most important work you can do is to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. With salvation, you become the “good man” Martin Luther talked about who will do those “good works.”
The series has been about loving God with all that we are—ALL our heart, ALL our soul, ALL our mind, ALL our strength (Mark 12:30).
Where do we start? Start where you need to.
Maybe your heart is cold: Use your mind to speak truth to your soul. “Renew your mind” (Rom 12:2) and let that affect your heart. Or use your body: sometimes you have to “fake it until you make it.”
If you’re passionate for Christ and living a sacrificial life, maybe make sure you’re loving God with your mind. Is your life directed by God’s Word? Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Does that mark your Christian life, or is it simply a life of zeal and emotion?
Prayer and Song (“Prayer of Consecration”).
[1] Daniel J. Block, Deuteronomy, NIVAC (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 184.
[2] Block, Deuteronomy, NIVAC (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 189.
[3] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works: Career of the Reformer 1, Vol. 31 (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1957), 344.
[4] Ibid., 361.
Here are some other recent messages.
We are a church built on the Bible, guided and empowered by the Spirit, striving to make disciples, and pursuing holiness in the context of robust biblical relationships.
© 2026 Cornerstone Fellowship Church of Apex
