The Simplicity Of Love, Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Remember Jesus said if you had enough faith you could move a mountain? Paul says you could have enough faith that you could remove the mountain. Let's put it on CNN.

I'll go down and I'll stand in front of Everest and I'll just say remove. Would that impress folks? Yeah.

I mean this is hyperbole but yes. Notice if he said I had all that faith and I do not have love. I am nothing. Nothing. Wow.

See you and I would be impressed by all those things. Boy there's an authentic believer. There's a greatly spiritual man.

He said no without love it's nothing. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Jesus says it's the greatest commandment. It's the basis of everything in Christianity. There's nothing in Christianity even remotely as important. What is the single most important thing as Christians that you and I need to do?

Love the Lord our God. I'm going to look at that. That's what this is all about. That's what you're faced about more than anything and we get in the same kind of problem. We keep thinking man there's so many things I should be doing or not doing.

I need to do more things. You see how do you if you're in Israel at the time how do you obey God and get all those blessings? You love Him. You see the obedience is born out of love not duty. Duty will never work. It's not wages.

You love them. That's the whole point. So if we look at it from that point of view.

Let's go back to Mark. Jesus answered and said the foremost of this hero Israel the Lord our God is one Lord and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This is very very hard for religious people to accept. It's all about love. Yeah. But let me explain something.

You and I are just as guilty. You see how do we judge people. See how do you know if someone's really a believer and walks with the Lord. Well maybe if they know a lot of scripture they must be walking close to the Lord.

Oh they've done great things. Won't matter you're going to see this and hold your place here with one more time this go to First Corinthians 13. You know the chapter even if you don't even know the Bible you know this chapter because you've attended weddings. This is the wedding chapter. I'm not totally against that I even use it myself. But it's not about weddings.

You see it's not what it's about. Paul is going to say something to us that I find very convicting First Corinthians 13 first verse if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. How about that. Now I want you to imagine this. You meet me in the lobby afterwards. And I say to you I'm talking I said I want to be able to speak to you in a certain way I know you're nervous and I speak angelic language to you.

Not even having any idea what that's like. But you know it's not English you know it's not. And I'm speaking angelic language. What do you think about me. I mean some of you think that's creepy.

I get that. But what do you think. Holy cow this guy speaks angel language. You see he's something.

I mean you'd say that's what look what kind of Christian he is. OK. If I speak with the tongues of men and the tongues of angels but I do not have love. I have become nothing but a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. It meant nothing.

It meant nothing. If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all mysteries and all knowledge. Wow. Now just imagine that I could prophesy anything. Anything anything is going to happen I can prophesy. And I have all knowledge. You see ask me anything. I don't care what kind of question neurosurgery astronomy. Ask me any.

I got the answer that I know I have all the knowledge. Would you be impressed. Come on.

Would you. Yes. Wow that guys. Wow.

How about this. We know how important is that faith. And all faith so as to remove mountains. Now remember Jesus said if you had enough faith you could move a mountain. Paul says you could have enough faith that you could remove the mountain. Let's put on CNN.

I'll go down and I'll stand in front of Everest and I just say remove. Would that impress folks. Yeah.

I mean this is hyperbole but yes. Notice if he said I had all that faith and I do not have love. I am nothing. Nothing. Wow.

See you and I would be impressed by all those things. There's an authentic believer there's a greatly spiritual man. He said no without love it's nothing. He said if I give all my possessions to feed the poor. And remember what that means. All your possessions. I don't mean I give money to the poor. I'm not going to be like that. It's not like oh wow you see how much money Bill Gates gave to Africa.

That's great. But he didn't give everything he had. But I gave everything. Everything I had to the poor.

That's impressive isn't it. And if I surrender my body to be burned. They're after me because I'm Christian I said go ahead and burn me at the stake. Martyr me. It's OK. What would you say. Wow.

Right to the end. I could be like John Huss singing hymns when they burned me at the stake. Now Mitt would those things impress you. Yes. He said but do not have love. It profits me nothing.

Nothing. You start getting idea the simplicity of Christianity is I better love God. That's the whole point. It's the motive I used to obey commandments. You see it's authenticating my faith. Now back to Mark. As we go through this look what it says.

He said right in the beginning. And you shall love your God. That's what he says. You shall love your God. This is personal.

It's not a generic thing. You must love your God. The nature of the word. Love. Agapao. The other form of agape. Agape is the way God loves us. Remember there's three words in scripture in the New Testament for love. Eros which is physical love and attraction. Phileo which is brotherly love.

City, Philadelphia, city of brotherly love. This is agape. You know what agape is not used in Greek language hardly at all.

You can't even find it. It's a very unusual word but it's the word of God's love for us. Agape love is unconditional and it's the choice to love someone who's not lovable. In fact it's exactly the way God loves you. For God so loved the world.

Agape. You see he sent his only son. God loved you and I when we were both at enmity with God. He loved us. He knew every failure. This one sin's enough to condemn us in God's presence. You know how many you have and I know how many I have. He said I love him anyway.

I'm going to do this. It's God's choice to love. But notice what God says now. Now I want you to love me that way. I want you to choose to love me. You see that's what I want.

I want you to choose. That's so important to God. Remember Peter denied Jesus three times? After he shot his mouth off and said I'll protect you Lord. Nothing more bad happened to you and then little servant girl comes up to you.

No I don't know the guy. Jesus finally shows up with them when they're fishing in the end in John. And Jesus what did he say to Peter? Do you love me?

Why? It's the most important thing. Peter do you love me? Yes Lord. Peter keeps changing the word to phileo. Jesus said do you agape me?

Yeah Lord I phileo you. I don't think you fool Jesus like that. You know I've changed the word. English is love love but not in Greek. So the point is that's how important this is to Jesus.

How important it is. He said and then he adds that word it makes it most difficult for you and I. You shall love the Lord your God with all. There's the word all. All not some. All. All your heart.

Wow. Heart. From a Hebrew point of view the heart is the core of your identity. Proverbs 4 22 says this. Keep your heart with all diligence for out of your heart flow the issues of life. The heart is who you really are on the inside.

That's what it talks about. He said you have to love me with all of it. Wow. Then he says with all your soul. Suke in Greek. It means the seed of my emotions and the seed of my will.

Wow. In the Garden of Gethsemane and one more night on Thursday night. Jesus says this. My soul was exceedingly sorrowful. See this pain is so great it goes right down to the core of my emotions. It's all consumed. That kind of love.

The psalmist said this in Psalm 42. As a deer pants for the water brooks. This is a deer running from a predator or a fire. And he's exhausted and he gets some water. You know he puts his head down as fast as he could.

As a deer pants for water brooks. So my soul pants for you oh God. That's love. And all my mind. All my thoughts.

We've talked about thoughts for the last two weeks. All my thoughts. Paul says take every thought captive to Christ. All my heart. All my soul.

All my thoughts with all my strength. That's big. See it's simple.

But it's big. You see this is it. And guess what?

If you did that I'm going to say this. Everything else in your life would be in line. Everything.

Everything. But I have to love the Lord that way. You see that's why Jesus said this is the foremost command.

There's not another command like it. Now I know what you might be thinking. You might be thinking what you know. I don't know how to even measure this. Well let me give you an idea of how big this is. I was reading in Ripley's Believe It or Not of all places.

All right. And according to Ripley the longest expression of love ever written was the work of a Parisian painter. His name was Marcel Delacour. He wrote it in 1875. And it was addressed to Magdalene de Vilori.

And the artist loved her to death. And so he wrote her a letter. And in the letter he said, Je vous et me.

We can say it's a tame in English for the French but, Je vous et me is I love you. And he wrote in the letter, 1,875,000 times. 1,875,000 times.

Why that number? The year is 1875. He wrote it 1,000 times for the 1875 date. 1,875,000 times.

That's an expression of love. But he didn't write it with his own hand. He hired a scribe to write it for him. Now see you changed your mind right? Don't do that yet.

Okay? He had a scribe write it for him. And he told the scribe he wanted it written.

But he said that would not have really expressed my love. So Delacour was so entranced with those two words, Je vous et me, in French, that what he decided to do is he would dictate it, Je vous et me, he would say. Then he told the scribe, you say, Je vous et me, then you write it. Then I say, Je vous et me, then you say, Je vous et me, and then you write it. So in all, they uttered or wrote, Je vous et me, I love you, 5,625,000 times and sent it to her.

How many of you ladies have had that kind of love letter? That's an amazing expression of love, right? It's nothing compared to what Jesus is asking of us.

All my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my strength. To make it really simple, he's saying, look, you have to love me the way I love you. Now, you might have the next question, and you'd say, well, how do I know if I'm doing that? See, if I said, how many of you guys love God, love the Lord? But if I'm just reading that part, now you're more hesitant, aren't you? You say, well, yeah, it's easy to say that.

I was just thinking, how many ladies have had men tell you they loved you in a dating process and you find out they didn't? They just said the words. The words don't mean anything. Well, Jesus says, I'm going to give you a howl now. He says in verse 31, the second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Uh-oh. You have to love others, just like you love yourself.

What? That's not new, by the way. Pentateuch, Leviticus, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, written in the law. Matthew, in his account of this, says, Jesus said the second is like it.

They're attached. In other words, how can I demonstrate that I love God with everything I have and I love you with everything I have? There's the demonstration. Now, have you ever noticed how much easier it seems to love God than it is to love you guys? I mean, you know that.

And you notice how often you find people in your life that it's so easy to love. And other people in your life, you're still trying to learn to tolerate. You see, that becomes a problem for us.

That's a struggle for us. And it shouldn't be. See, that's what Jesus said.

It shouldn't be at all. All through the New Testament, it says things like this. Philippians 2 says, Let each of you look not only out for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Philippians says you should consider everyone else is more important than you. Romans 15, let each of us please his neighbor for his good leading to his edification. 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 24, Let no one seek his own, but each the other person's well-being. See, if I were to want to say I love God, in Deuteronomy it was, if I love God, I'll keep his commandments. In the New Testament, Jesus says, if you really love me, then you'll love all people.

And he's careful about this. Remember, he said words that disturb us. You and I need to love our enemies. That hard, difficult, we usually just ignore it. We ignore it.

Someone's an enemy or even close to an enemy, we just ignore this. I don't really care. But I'm telling you what Jesus is saying. If you don't love them, you don't love me. Don't you dare say you love me, unless you love them.

See, this is a little bit more difficult. Let's go to 1 John chapter 4, last passage, 1 John chapter 4. Verse 7 gives the command, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. That's the command. Jesus is saying, I give you a new commandment, you love one another.

All right. But then he gets down to verse 19. And he said, We love because he first loved us. The reason I have the capacity to do this is God first loved me. That love sent his son to die on a cross, my faith in him got the spirit of God in my life, and now I have the capacity to love you. Then he goes on and said, If someone says I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar.

Can't be more clear than that. He's a liar. And the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love the God who he has not seen. You can't make that deal with God. Oh, I really love you, God, but I can't stand these people. And he said, And this commandment we have from him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. Wow. Scripture says that, You had people that wronged you in your life and hurt you?

Yes. What's God say? Forgive them.

That's what he says. In fact, he told Peter 70 times 70, Forgive them. And he said, Let me be clear. You need to forgive them exactly the way Christ forgives you. Now, you like being on the forgiving end. Oh, Lord, I'm such a disappointment. Thank you for forgiving me.

Someone really hurts you. I'm not forgiving them. And all I'm telling you is you can say that, but you don't love God. Don't say you do. Just admit it. I'm a liar. That's what John said.

I'm lying. I don't love God. Wow. So, there are two answers there to one question, but Jesus said the two answers need to be there.

One states my love for God, all-inclusive, and two proves my love for God, the way I love others. And so, we call ourselves Christians. But even as I'm speaking these words, what happens?

You're just like the driver. Oh, we can't do that. Wow. I don't know. I thought Paul wrote to the Philippians, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. So, why are you telling me you can't? Just tell me the truth. I don't want to do that, because I don't love God. There you go.

Now, at least you're being honest. You see, this is a very simplistic view of our faith, but don't you find it difficult? I mean, it's kind of intimidating that he would do this. Every command God gives us in the Bible relates to God or other people. That's why we need the love. Paul says no matter what we do or what we accomplish, if we do it without love, we're nothing. Jesus says without hesitation, this is the foremost of all the commandments.

That's what Christianity is about. God loved you so much, he sent his son. The son loved you so much, he died on the cross. Now God says, you love me.

You need to love me with everything you have, the way I love you. And every act of obedience we do is born out of our love and gratitude for God. And then God says we can prove that love by the way we love each other. Don't make your faith too complicated. Jesus said it's quite simple. Love the Lord your God, all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.

Wow. Let's pray for a moment. Father, may your spirit convict us of this, for I know that so many of us find ourselves not doing this very simple thing. But Father, I want us to remind ourselves how much you loved us, how we need to love others in you.

In Jesus' name, Amen. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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