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How would you describe the state of your heart? I am not talking about your outer world of your actions, your words, your relationships, or your work. I am talking about the inner world of your will, attitudes, thoughts, emotions, motivations, and affections. Is it well-ordered, ruled by the love, joy, and peace of God? Or is it a mess, ruled by anger, fear, envy, turmoil, conflict, despair, regret and so forth? For most of us, I’d guess that that it’s more of a mess than we’d like. A big part of the brokenness of our hearts is the tangled mess of unmet desires and cravings that seem to control us in ways that are unhealthy. If your heart were a garden, would you say that it looks more like a tangled mess of brambles—or a beautiful, healthy, thriving, and well-ordered garden [show 2 pictures of gardens]? Dallas Willard wrote a book called “Renovation of the Heart.” I love that metaphor of taking something that is old, broken, disfigured, rotting, or disordered—and then renovating, renewing, restoring it—making it beautiful and well-ordered, like new—even upgrading it. Here is a picture of a house before and after it was renovated. And the next slide is a picture of a car before and after it was restored. In Rev 21, John has a vision of the age to come, the new heavens and the new earth. In that future age, God declares in V 5: Rev 21:5 “I am making all things new.” God’s plan is to completely heal and renew all things. This includes healing the creation itself, healing the broken systems of this world, healing our bodies, healing our relationships, and healing our hearts. But even though this complete healing and renovation will occur in the age to come, we don’t have to wait to die to start the process. Both the OT and NT use the words renew, restore, and heal to describe the work that God is doing in our lives and in this world today. Here’s one example: Psalm 23:3 He [the Lord] restores my soul. Let that sink in. Isn’t that wonderful? God desires to restore your broken, messed-up soul to a place of wholeness. How can you start to experience the healing, transforming power of God in your heart today? There are many ways that God restores our soul, and this sermon series is about one of the most important ways, which is that God renovates our loves, our affections, our desires, our delights. The title of this sermon series is: Loving and Rejoicing in the Lord. This is absolutely at the center of what it means to live well as a disciple of Jesus. If we can learn to wholeheartedly love and rejoice in the Lord, it will begin to properly order everything else in our lives. It’s like the organizing and healing power that can straighten out the other stuff in our hearts. The great church father, Augustine, said: “The essence of sin is disordered love.” He also defined virtue as “rightly ordered love”. What he means is that all our brokenness can be traced to loving created things too much and not loving God enough. It’s not a bad thing to desire power, prestige, wealth, comfort, safety, or romance. The problem is that we love these things too much, and it turns our hearts into a tangled mess of brambles. These things become heart idols. This is clearly seen in Jesus’ teaching about the cost of discipleship in Luke 14. Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” Why does He say we should hate our family and even our own lives? Jesus is using exaggeration here because we know from elsewhere in scripture it’s a good thing to love our family. But He’s saying we should love Him so much, that in comparison our love for our family would look like hate. For most people, if you ask them what it means to be a Christ follower, they’d probably say it’s about following a bunch of rules, the do’s and the don’t’s: Do this, do this, don’t do this, don’t do this. Doesn’t that describe the ten commandments? Thou shalt and thou shalt not? Yes, most of the ten commandments regulate our actions, but the first one is the foundation of all the other commandments. Ex 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before me.” This first commandment is one primarily of the heart rather than actions. Let’s say you asked me to tell you about my relationship with my wife Kim. What if I described our relationship by telling you about the rules I follow, the do’s and the don’t’s? And I said, here are the do’s: I do the dishes twice a week, I buy her flowers once a month, and I give her a hug every day. And here are the don’t’s: I don’t lie to her, I don’t yell at her, and I don’t cheat on her. You’d probably say that it seems weird that I would describe our relationship in terms of rules. Just because you follow the rules doesn’t mean you have a healthy, happy marriage. The essence of a healthy, happy marriage is love, connection, intimacy, and delighting in each other. Sure, there are some rules and some boundaries. It’s a good thing that I don’t cheat on my wife. But the rules are not the essence of a marriage—they are boundaries that help to maintain a loving relationship. In the same way, our walk with God isn’t primarily about the rules, the do’s and don’t’s. It’s about love, connection, intimacy, delighting in each other. The rules are important, but they are not the essence of what it means to walk with Jesus. One of the most common themes of Jesus’ teaching is that God is more interested in our hearts than our outward actions. What is going on in here [point hand] is more important than what’s going on out here [move hands]. This is clearly seen in the sermon on the mount, where Jesus says it’s not just about following the commands to not murder or not commit adultery, but about our heart attitudes of anger and lust. He then says that when we pray or give money, it’s not about how much we give or how long we pray, but our heart attitudes of loving God instead of wanting to gain the approval of others. The NT teaches that God wants to heal and transform us from the inside out, not just make us follow a bunch of rules. The Jewish leaders were zealously meticulous in trying to obey all the hundreds of OT laws, but Jesus repeatedly rebuked them for obeying laws outwardly while having improper motivations. At one point during one of these rebukes, he quoted Isa 29:13: The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” This was written to OT Jews, but Jesus said it still applied in His day. This is a sobering indictment. It’s possible to be a person who knows the Bible very well and has accurate theology, who is zealously meticulous in following the rules (do this, don’t do this), but who has a heart that is far from God. It is so easy for us to fall into this sort of religion. But I don’t want to be the sort of Christian that Jesus would rebuke with the charge that I am coming near to God with my mouth, and doing many of the right things outwardly, but have a heart that is far from Him. How can we avoid this? How can we have a heart that is loving God passionately and experiencing the joy of the Lord? How can we be healed and transformed from the inside out rather than just trying to follow the rules? How can we experience connection and intimacy with the Lord—delighting in Him and Him delighting in us? Let’s start with the well-known passage from Matt 22:35-40: 35 One of [the Jewish leaders], an expert in the law, tested Jesus with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” OT scholars considered there to be 613 distinct commands in the OT. So this guy is asking Jesus which of the 613 is the most important. And Jesus gives him two: love God and love others, and everything else hangs on these two commands. That is remarkable: He’s saying that if we can learn to do these two things well, everything else falls into place. I have many goals in life—many desires—but if I am a follower of Jesus, loving God and loving people should be my supreme goal, my ultimate desire. For example, I have financial goals, I have goals about my physical health, I have family goals, I have career goals, and so forth. If I were to sit down for a few hours, I could probably write down a hundred different goals, pursuits, and desires I have. And if I were to prioritize these goals—rank them from most important to least important— as a follower of Jesus, loving God and loving people should be at the top of the list—more important than any other pursuit. And if love is my supreme goal, all other goals must support this goal. Here’s an analogy: if you are an Olympic athlete and your supreme goal is to win a medal, then all your other goals (like how you eat or how you sleep) should be subservient to and helping to advance the goal of winning a medal. You hopefully wouldn’t say, “I am going to eat 2 liters of chocolate ice cream today because it’s really yummy even though it will set back my chances of winning the medal.” That is why learning to love God and love people can help to heal the brokenness of our lives. If our desires are like a tangled mess of brambles, love can help to order the affections and cravings of our heart to look more like a beautiful garden, as all the desires and pursuits of our lives get in line with our supreme mission of love. According to Jesus, everything else hangs on the two great commands of love. That said, here are two questions that every following of Jesus should be an expert on: 1. What does it mean to love God? 2. How do we develop more love for God? If you are a follower of Jesus, such that loving God is your supreme goal, then it’s imperative to understand what it really means to love and how to achieve it. If I return to the example of an athlete, let’s say you are an Olympic football player. To move from being a mediocre player to a champion player, you need to understand at least two things: 1. What are the skills needed to be a champion football player? 2. How do I develop those skills? If you don’t understand what the needed skills are or have a plan for how to get those skills through training, you will not achieve your goal of attaining the gold medal. When you look at your life—how you spend your time and your money and your energy; what sort of things you think about or dream about; what sorts of things get you excited or delighted—would you say that loving God is your supreme desire, your most important goal? Do you know what it looks like to love God? What’s your plan—your strategy—for becoming a person of love? If you don’t have a plan, it’s unlikely to happen; we don’t usually drift into loving God; we typically drift into self-absorption and self-deception. And: we must have this understanding of love, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of the people around us. We are responsible for helping others develop into loving followers of Jesus. So, that’s what we will be looking at during this sermon series: what does it look like to love God, and how we can develop more of that love? When you ask the first question, what does it mean to love, I think many people would say the essence of love is commitment and service. If I love God, that means I am committed to God and serve Him faithfully. If I love my wife, that means I am committed to her and serve her. But I don’t think that’s right. Commitment and service are closely related to love and are the necessary result or fruit of love. But they aren’t the essence of love. John 14:15 (Jesus said) “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” He did not say that keeping his commandments is what love is. He distinguished the two and made obedience the evidence of loving Him, the fruit of loving Him, not the definition of loving Him. The essence of love can be explained with these words: Value Joy Desire If I love something, it means I value and enjoy and desire that thing. If I love pizza, it means that pizza is valuable to me and gives me joy, so I desire it. If I love my children, it means they are precious to me and make me happy, and I desire to have connection with them, and desire their wellbeing. This leads to being committed to my children and serving them. Thus, the essence of loving God is treasuring God, considering Him to be more precious than anything or anyone else. It’s a matter of the affections, which then results in external actions of obedience. It’s an experience of cherishing, savoring, delighting, admiring, valuing, appreciating, and enjoying God’s infinite greatness—which leads to desiring and seeking God and finding satisfaction in Him more than anything else—which then leads to commitment and service. There are many expressions of this sort of treasuring and delighting found in scripture, which we will look at during this series. Here is one we will briefly look at today. Psalm 27:4 (George preached on this last month) One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. This is the cry of someone who loves God with all his heart. How would you complete this sentence? One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek… Fill in the blank. Now, be perfectly honest. What you would put here as the thing that you desire more than anything else? What would give you more delight than anything else? What is most valuable to you? What if a magic genie appeared to you and said he would grant you one wish—anything in the world—what would you ask for? Whatever it is, that is your greatest love. David greatest wish was to be with God, to know Him, to gaze on His beauty. Are you enthralled with the beauty of God? Picture your love for God like a fire that powers a steam engine. In a steam locomotive, the fire boils steam that powers the engine, and the engine drives the entire train. Without a powerful fire, the train will not move. And what does a fire need in order to burn? It needs fuel, like wood or coal. Here’s a video of someone feeding coal into the firebox to make the steam train go faster. [video] Just as the fire powers the train, our love for God is like a fire that powers our life. Is your love for God more like a blazing fire or a few smoldering coals? [show pictures] To have a passionate love for God that orders and powers our life, the fire of our love must have fuel. And what is that fuel? It’s the understanding and appreciation of God’s glory and beauty. All of us are naturally drawn to love things that are amazingly beautiful and glorious. To the degree that we grasp the immeasurable worth of His beauty, His greatness, His love, His holiness, His justice, His wisdom, His power, and His faithfulness—our love will be a blazing fire instead of smoldering coals. And this is why our mind is so important. Our mind is like the woman in that video, shoveling coal into the firebox and stoking the fire. We can employ our mind to fuel our love for God and stoke the fire by meditating on God’s manifold glories. This is why biblical truth is essential for life transformation. Right thinking, if it is accompanied by humility and the work of God’s Spirit, is the fuel that leads to right loving. I have two quotes and one video from John Piper that I will share. Here is the first quote: Our thinking should be wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express the heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things… We cannot love God without knowing God; and the way we know God is by the Spirit-enabled use of our minds. So to “love God with all your mind” means engaging all your powers of thought to know God as fully as possible in order to treasure him for all he is worth. And where should our mind focus to know God most fully? It is helpful to look at nature because the heavens declare the glory of God. It is helpful to look at people because we are made in the image of God. But the magnificence of God is seen most clearly in His word, and especially in the person of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. [see also John 1:14] When you look at Jesus, you see a clear picture of God and you learn to love Him. Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory. When was the last time you read through the four gospels? Whenever I study the life and teachings of Christ, I fall deeper in love with Him. There are inexhaustible riches in Him. Read the gospels with a hungry heart that cries out: I want to see the glory of Christ. There is no one like Him. When is the last time you read about how the Jewish leaders tried to entrap Jesus with tricky questions, and his brilliant responses confounded them so thoroughly that the text says: no one dared to ask him any more questions. When I read that, something happens in my soul: “Yes, that’s my Lord! Such brilliance!” When is the last time you read John 13 where it recounts Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, the Lord of the universe doing the job of the lowest servant in the house? If that story of staggering love doesn’t bless you, your blesser is broken. That’s my Lord, that’s the one I love, that’s the one I will worship for all eternity. And, within the life of Christ, we can especially focus our gaze on His death and resurrection. That is where His glory, His beauty, His power, His love, His holiness, His faithfulness, His justice, and His wisdom shine most brightly. And out of all these attributes of God’s magnificence, I think the most beautiful is His love. Love has a way of melting and captivating our hearts, and producing in us a response of love, like nothing else can. Here’s another John Piper quote: If you wanted to increase your love for the glory of classical music, you would study it and spend time talking with people who love it, and you would listen and listen and listen. If you wanted to develop a love for the glory of visual art, you would study it and go to museums and spend time with those who love it, and you would look and look and look. If you wanted to develop a love for the glory of the heavens above, you would get a telescope and you would read astronomy and you would spend time with people who love the stars, and night by night you would gaze and gaze and gaze. And if you want to love the glory of God above all other glories, then you will study God and spend time with lovers of God, and listen to God and look at God and gaze and gaze and gaze at the revelation of the glory of God—especially in Jesus. This quote mentions one other important aspect of developing our love: If you spend time with people who passionately love something, their love naturally rubs off on you. So: Do you intentionally spend time with others who love God passionately so that their love rubs off on you? But there’s another important point to consider. So far I have been talking about what we can do to develop our love. However, there also needs to be a work of God’s grace through the HS for this to happen. In other words, the responsibility does not lie completely with us to conjure up this love with our own efforts. In all areas of our walk with God, there is a mysterious union between our efforts and God’s grace, between our work and God’s work in us. We strive while, at the same time, trusting in God’s enabling. This slide has some passages that support this idea that we can only love more fully as God does a work of grace in our hearts, if you want to write them down: Jer 31:3, 33 Gal 5:22 Eph 1:18 Rom 5:5 2 Cor 3:18 Eph 3:16-19 We have time to look at only one: 2 Cor 4:4, 6 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God… 6 God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God displayed in the face of Christ. V 4 says that Satan works to deceive us so that we can’t see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. The Devil’s goal is to keep us from seeing God’s glory. Humans have an insatiable appetite for glory, so if we don’t see God’s glory, Satan knows we’ll pursue it somewhere else. Maybe we’ll make an idol of the glory of music, or the glory of food, or the glory of Facebook, or the glory of our phone, or the glory of our family, or the glory of creation, or the glory of sports. These things have glory, but it’s just a dim reflection of their Creator God. We’ll find glory somewhere. We have to. We were made to worship. Think of sports: the way people get so passionate about sports and idolize their favorite athletes, the way people celebrate wins and mourn losses. Just watch a video of someone passionately cheering for their team: it’s a type of worship. It’s more passion than we typically have for worshipping God. I love sports, so this is one I have to be careful of: I don’t want to love sports with a disordered love. I want to love the glory of God a hundred times more than the glory of sports. And Satan is trying to make God look boring in comparison so I delight in other things more than I delight in God. V 6 shows God’s response to Satan’s work: Just like God made physical light shine into the darkness at the creation of the universe by His sovereign power and wisdom, He also makes spiritual light shine into our hearts by His sovereign power and wisdom. And why does He do this? To give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God displayed in the face of Christ. For us to delight in God’s glory, there must be a work of His sovereign grace shining in our hearts. Thus, there’s a spiritual battle going on in my heart that I can’t see. Carl did a series in October on spiritual warfare, and this is at the center of the battle: Do I grasp the glory and beauty of God in a way that joyfully compels me? So how do we practically activate the grace of God in our lives to complement our efforts to see His glory? Through humility, repentance, faith, dependence, and prayer. James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5 God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. There is no foolproof technique or formula, but humility is the basic requirement for accessing and activating God’s grace. God gives grace to the humble. And this humility expresses itself in repentance, faith, dependence, and prayer. There’s a fascinating story in Exodus 33 where Moses prays to God “Show me your glory,” and God grants his request. I would encourage you to cry out to God every day in prayer, asking for Him to transform your heart and show you His glory. And then confess and pray against the things that are your specific heart idols. We will close with a three-minute video clip of John Piper. It’s from a sermon about money. In this clip, he’s explaining his personal strategy for developing his love for God and battling against his love for money, because if he just coasts, the love of money creeps into his heart and has the potential to destroy his life. [video] So I pray that you will engage your thinking as fully as possible for the sake of knowing God as fully as possible, that you might treasure God as fully as possible. I pray that you will employ your mind to provide your heart with as much fuel for the fire of love as it can possibly deliver. And I pray that the Holy Spirit will, by His grace, enable you to grasp God’s infinite glory and beauty, so that you would delight yourself in the Lord and that your loves would be rightly ordered.