Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Deuteronomy six holds one of the most well known commands in the Bible. You shall love the LORD your God, with all your heart, with all your soul. and with all your might. It calls us to keep His words on our hearts.
These commands are far more than a simple duty. To love our God fully is to be connected to the one we were made for. our very source of life and purpose. Without him We're nothing. God knows that without him mankind cannot flourish.
And with him. we find our soul's deepest need and highest good. This is part two of a message titled You Shall Love the Lord Your God. It was first preached on may nineteenth, twenty five. This is why when you attend a wedding, when you got married, and we officiate a wedding.
There are what? Vows. And those vows are actually vows to the I am vowing, I am promising, I make a vow that I will be committed, devoted to you and you alone. Why do they need to exchange vows? because it's guaranteed that that relationship is going to be tested.
We live in a broken world. We are broken people. We are two different and imperfect people. That relationship will be tested. That's why those vows are necessary.
And so God is calling his people for an undivided loyalty. to himself. As we see in the marriage vows, and when that relationship becomes tested. When one does something that the other doesn't like. Do you love the other?
Or do you love yourself more? And this is what God is calling of his people. Do you love me or do you love yourself more? When your marriage is tested, do you love your spouse or do you love yourself more? This is what vowels are for.
The demonstration of this greatest command is not only an undivided loyalty to him, but this is loving God is the highest human function. You are a congregation of humans. We are a congregation of humans. this morning. Our very highest function is to love God.
To draw near. to God. Person, drawing near to person. When you love someone, isn't that what you do? You draw near to them.
To shun them is the opposite. To draw near to God, and we can because He invites us to draw near to Him. He has made it possible for us to draw near to Him. And so we ought to if we love him. We were designed to draw near to him.
It is Our highest good. Listen to me. Drawing near to God is your highest good. It is your deepest satisfaction. Loving God is your highest function.
Not only do we see the demonstration of it here, but we see. the cultivated disposition. This is to be the character of God's people. to love God, to be devoted to him. Loyalty to him.
And it is a cultivated disposition. In other words, he's not just talking about an emotion that you conjure up. When he says, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, he's talking about your whole being. It's not just an emotional thing. Your whole being.
devoted to him. And when it says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. It's not another part of you. What it means is that could be translated exceedingly. Love the Lord your God with your whole being.
Exceedingly. It's what that reads. In other words, Loving God. isn't a casual thing. And it's not relegated.
to a particular event. Loving God defines Who I am. That's the greatest command. As it defines who I am, it says in verse 6: And these words I command you today shall be on your heart. There's a lot of things that could mean.
But it simply comes down to this. Loving God is an integral part of your life. It's an integral part of your life. It is essential. It is fundamental to who you are.
The word, the idea of irreducible complexity. Right. You take apart, you take a simple little machine. There are so many parts that you can take out of there before that machine becomes utterly useless and can't function anymore. And so it is with the love of God.
You remove my love for God, knowing the love He has for me. If I remove that, it. robs me of my function as one created in the image of God. Not only is it an integral part of your life. but he leads us to applied knowledge for life.
Loving God, there is an applied knowledge for life. We're going to look at two points here: practical focus and intentional remembering. Look at these verse seven, verse seven, you shall teach them diligently to your children. And 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. You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
There's some imagery here. That's very important imagery.
So, the practical focus of loving God. of communing, of being devoted to God. It starts and it happens. where at home. Parents, are you listening to me?
I hope, I hope. Speaking of God. Praying. Reading the Bible. Singing to God.
I hope it's not something that just happens here at church on Sunday. Because if it is. Your kids are royally missing out. They will equate God to, they will relegate God to a time and a place. As just a part of my life.
And usually, what happens, if you take that circle that I draw, that represents a wheel, and that wheel represents your life, and in the middle of it is a hub. the hub and and then the spokes go out and they represent all the different areas of your life. And one of those areas, one of those compartments of your life is called leisure. And what happens for far too many people is God gets a tiny slice of that part called leisure.
Now, think about how. arrogant that is of us. The one who made me. The one who died for me. To reconcile me to himself, and I give him a tiny slice of the leisure part of my life.
God forgive us. God forgive us. At home, teach your children diligently. In the marketplace, when you are in public, God is a normal part of your conversation, and it is obvious to those who watch you that you love God, you are devoted to God, you are marching to His drumbeat. In the marketplace.
In all activity. The preeminence, the pure in heart, as Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall what? See God. In every activity that I involve myself, I am aligned with and I communicate God's goodness. and God's holiness.
Now listen. None of us will arrive to perfection at this. I fail, and I have failed miserably. But I don't stay in that failure. I don't define myself by that failure.
I seek forgiveness. I seek God. I renew my devotion to Him. That's what it means to love God. And it's applied knowledge for life with a practical focus.
And then he gets into, and this is what I really want us to be challenged with today. First of all, the assessment. How much of my life, in how much of my life, can I say I love God? this way. With my family, I love God.
with and through my family, with my work. I love God with and through my work. With my finances, I love God with and through my finances. My intellect, I love God with and through my intellect. Make that assessment.
Do you love God? with all your heart, soul, and mind. I can put it in the negative sense. If take this whole compartment of your life, is there any part of your life? where God does not apply.
Then that is a confession of idolatry. Because there is no part of your life where God does not apply. All of us entirely devoted to Him. And everything I do with my time, with my intellect, with my leisure, with my finances, with my work, with my family, all of it aligns with God's goodness and holiness. All of it communicates God's goodness and God's holiness.
But he leads us into intentional remembering, and this is where he uses strong imagery. Verse 8, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand. What do you do with your hands? You're productive with your hands. Your hands do things.
Right?
So whatever you're doing Let it be a mark of your devotion to God. You've been listening to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. To hear this message and others, check out www.delightandgrace.com To discover how to live by grace, tune in with us on weekdays at 10 a.m.
