Sermon Notes

Title: Who’s Next? | How to Truly Love God with All Your Heart

Main Scripture: Deuteronomy

Introduction

• Key Verse: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5)
• Loving God isn’t just about words or feelings—it’s about our actions, decisions, and daily surrender.
• In this sermon, we’ll explore:
  • How to love God with all your heart.
  • The role of God’s Commandments in demonstrating love and obedience.
  • The importance of trusting God and surrendering fully, even in hard times.

Section 1: What Does It Mean to Love God?

• Key Scripture: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5)
• Loving God means putting Him first in every aspect of our lives.
• It’s about complete devotion—your thoughts, decisions, and actions should reflect your relationship with Him.
• Biblical Guidance: Loving God is demonstrated through:
  • Obeying God’s Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:16).
  • Daily trust and dependence on God for everything.

Section 2: God’s Commandments and Love

• Key Scripture: “This is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3)
• Obedience to God’s Commandments is a natural response to loving Him.
• Biblical examples:
  • Deuteronomy 6:4-5: The greatest commandment.
  • Mark 10:14: Jesus shows how we should love with childlike faith.

Practical Application:

• Loving God is the foundation of Christian living and faith.
• Ask yourself: Are you loving God fully by following His Word and trusting Him completely?

Section 3: Trusting God in Hard Times

• Key Scripture: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)
• Trusting God is essential when life feels overwhelming.
• Example: In times of difficulty, we can find peace by surrendering to God and relying on His promises.
• Faith grows strongest during trials:
  • Dependence on God deepens our love for Him.
  • Challenges refine our ability to love God with all our heart.

Section 4: Dependence on God and Christian Living

• Key Scripture: “Remain in me, as I also remain in you.” (John 15:4)
• True Christian living is built on dependence on God:
  • Daily prayer and reflection.
  • Trusting God’s plan for our lives.
• The greatest act of faith is complete surrender to God.

Conclusion: Surrender to Love God Fully

• Key Scripture: “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'” (Matthew 22:37-39)
• Recap: To truly love God:
  1. Keep His commandments.
  2. Trust Him in every situation.
  3. Depend on Him fully for guidance and strength.
• Call to Action:
  • Reflect on how you can surrender more of your heart to God.
  • Seek out Christian sermons online or listen to Christian podcasts to continue growing in your faith.

Key Takeaways:

• Loving God isn’t passive; it requires intentional action, obedience, and trust.
• The foundation of faith and prayer lies in surrendering fully to Him.
• When we focus on God’s Commandments and live a life of dependence, we grow stronger in our faith.

Additional Resources:

• Want to learn more about how to deepen your faith? Explore other sermons on faith and topics like trusting God in hard times on our website.
• Listen to Christian podcasts or download more Christian sermons online to stay inspired in your walk with God.

Bible Verses

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 (NLT)

“Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.”

Amos 5:25–26 (NLT)

“Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, Israel? No, you served your pagan gods—Sakkuth your king god and Kaiwan your star god—the images you made for yourselves.”

Matthew 15: 8-9

“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far away. Their worship is a farce, for they replace God’s commands with their own man-made teachings.”

Matthew 22:37–40 (NLT)

“Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Books:

• “Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive” by John Eldridge

Eldredge explores how God created us to live with fully devoted hearts, unshackled from worldly distractions.

• “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer

A profound exploration of God’s character, this classic work deepens understanding and fosters a closer relationship with Him.

• “Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist” by John Piper

This book is a powerful resource for understanding what it means to love God with all your heart. Piper argues that true joy is found in God alone and that we are called to delight in Him.

• “With All Your Heart: Orienting Your Mind, Desires, and Will toward Christ” by A. Craig Troxel
  This book delves into what it means to love God with all your heart, examining the mind, desires, and will, which complements the sermon’s focus on sincere devotion.

Articles and Blog Posts:

• “Love God with Your Everything” by Desiring God
  This article discusses the command to love God with all your heart, soul, and strength, providing insights that parallel the sermon’s message on wholehearted love.
• “Love God with All Your Heart – Study God’s Greatest Commandment” by Revealed Truth
  This Bible study examines what it means to love God fully, offering a deeper understanding that aligns with the sermon’s themes.
• “What Deuteronomy and a Red Pencil Can Tell You about Your Heart” by Ascension Press
  This article reflects on the teachings of Deuteronomy regarding the heart, echoing the sermon’s focus on internal transformation and commitment. 
• “Loving God with Heart and Mind” by Alister McGrath

This article discusses integrating intellect and passion in our love for God, emphasizing a holistic approach to faith.

Sermons and Videos:

• “Love God With All Your Heart” by The Church of Eleven22

A sermon focusing on understanding our own shortcomings in light of God’s immense love and mercy, inspiring deep worship.

Some of these above links in this post maybe affiliate links, and we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. These are resources that we would recommend regardless of whether we earn a commission or not.  The income generated helps cover website maintenance costs, allowing us to continue sharing sermons, resources, and content with you. We appreciate your support!

Transcript: Who’s Next? | 

Waiting…we don’t like it. We don’t like to wait. We don’t like to wait for anything and you’re waiting for one thing, right? Who’s next? Who’s next? Sort of like the McDonald’s line, right? You’re all waiting there and Okay, next person please to get in there. So we wait, we wait. Well, in Deuteronomy, that’s where we find the people. Now, in Exodus and Leviticus, they had just entered into the desert process and God was giving them some important instructions and then in numbers it kind of shows what part of their journey was as they went through it and also some instructions, but now they’re at a different point in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is similar and people don’t realize. The difference though is that God is really giving a message to somebody else. Now he’s giving it to the next generation and the next generation is what we’re going to talk to Today. I’m going to ask everybody who was born after nineteen sixty three, nineteen sixty three and beyond to move closer to the frontier. First three rows. Okay, well you guys come on up, up, up. Come on. Anybody after 1963, do we have to move out? Yeah, if you need to make some room for some people, but you saying you were born in 63 or later or later? Okay. Yeah. 1963 or later. Let’s get to the front rows because what Moses was doing here is he was addressing the next generation, and that’s what I want to do.

Yes. Then Jesus say something like, suffer not the little children and let ’em come to me, so okay, nobody’s holding back. Okay, well, this is just a visible illustration. I mean, Moses is approaching a new generation now. The people that are going to take over the promised land, this was an important group to him. The law that Moses laid on the people before this in the Old Testament in Exodus, Leviticus, and numbers, it wasn’t meant to be a burden to people. It was to show them how to live together in harmony with each other and with God, and they weren’t supposed to be harsh regulations or anything that they couldn’t fulfill, but it was to distinguish them as people of God to set them apart and say, you’re going to be different from the rest of the world around you, the rest of the culture, rest of society.

These rules are going to make you look a little different. It’s just like I mentioned, the rules that we have in the United States make us look different than the rules they have in Russia, don’t they? Or in China everybody’s got rules and everybody’s rules distinguishes them. Everybody’s got some ordinances to follow. Every city has got ordinances that distinguish ’em different from other cities and they have a special purpose for a special time for a special people. Ordinances and laws don’t always apply to everybody all the time, but it’s for a specific group, and that’s what Moses is trying to get across to the people in Deuteronomy. You’re a special group and there’s some things that transcend generations that you need to know, and there’s some things that are specific for your generation you need to know, and I want to help you understand those things.

I want you to know that, and so he wanted their ear. Just like many families have different rules. Well, he’s saying we’re going to have some different rules now for your families than even from your previous families. The key issue is to remember that the law was never meant to be their means of salvation. He’s not telling ’em how to get saved. He’s telling them how to live as saved people. It sort of serves as a gauge. The law, it’s sort of like a thermometer. When you put a thermometer in your mouth, it serves as a gauge and it tells you something. Now, if your thermometer shows that it’s 101, after you put it in your mouth, do you shake it down trying to get it to be right or you say, no, something’s wrong. That has driven my temperature up. You see, that’s what the law was to do.

It was to help them reflect on what’s going on inside as to what may be causing them to break the law that was meant for their good. The law was not there to harm them or to restrict them in any way, but to bring them together as a special people with each other and with God, and as you look at Deuteronomy, it looks like a kind of repeat of the same old same old rules, rules, rules, but it’s different than the other books of the law. The other books of the law were written more like a contract, sort of like a typical contract of those days. They find other contracts in their archeology and stuff from those days and other books followed similar flow for other contracts like we have contracts for rentals. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all. Well, that’s sort of how this Leviticus and numbers were written so that they understood it as a contract that they were entering into. They had a part to fulfill. God had a part to fulfill. Deuteronomy is different. It was written as a message. It was written personally. It was more like a sermon to them or a speech. It’s a message of concern. It’s a message of warning. These are the last words that Moses was to speak to this generation before they take over the promised land and he wasn’t going to go with them.

In Deuteronomy five, there’s a reminder that says in verse 16, to honor your parents, don’t leave them behind. It’s not that they were bad. You’re going to struggle. They struggled, so you honor your parents, but move on. Okay, so you guys in the front row, forget those ones behind you for now. You’re not a victim of their upbringing or anything else. No, it’s time for you to move on. Give them the honor. Do whether they deserve it or not is not the issue. God says to do it, honor ’em, but move on. Okay, so it’s time to move on, and it is a warning that God’s blessings are conditional. They’re conditional in one thing, but before I tell you what that main thing is, what that one thing is, I want to illustrate something that it’s not. Back in the sixties, there was a lot of anti-war sentiment. It was in full bloom. There was a bumper sticker that kind of started to take a different stand and it presented a solution to the anti-war sentiment. It read America. Anybody know the rest, love it or leave it.

The concerns that Moses is trying to get across are far different from that. Far different from that. God was delivering a message to his people, and if Moses had a camel and he had a bumper sticker on the back of that camel, it would read something like promised land, love it and you’ll lose it. He wanted the people to love him, not what he was giving them. Didn’t want them to lose sight of the Almighty God. The book of Deuteronomy was to be the nation’s handbook on how to operate within that land. The full commitment to God is what was necessary, not a full commitment to what he was giving them, and if they did that, God would assure his blessing. God would test them throughout the process just like Abraham and Isaac. That was a test. Now, a lot of times we say, well, it was a test of his obedience when God brought it up to Abraham in the first place. He said, Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son, your only son, the son. That’s fulfillment of the promise the son you love.

He was testing his love before his obedience. God doesn’t want our empty obedience. He doesn’t want us to hand him those flowers and say, here, I picked him out of the neighbor’s yard or Here, I figured you needed this God. No. That’s not why He wants our obedience. He wants our heart, and so he was testing Abraham’s heart to see who he loved and how much he loved him. The key verse for Deuteronomy is in six, four and five, all of Deuteronomy is wrapped up there. Hero Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength, how much is left. He gets it all. That’s the heart of Deuteronomy and from there right after that, a lot of us are familiar that we’re to teach these things to our kids.

What are we supposed to teach our kids? All the rules and regulations. Start with love, the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul. God says to wear that saying, to put it on your forehead, to put it on your wrist, to put it on your doorposts, put it everywhere. Love the Lord your God with everything. That’s what we’re to be modeling. That’s the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, so we’re to express the love we have towards God based on a unique relationship we have with him. He won’t allow those who claim to be his to have divided hearts. That’s what he’s telling him in Deuteronomy, don’t say your mine and then go do something else. I cannot stand a divided heart. If you’re going to say your mind, you’re going to follow me, but if you’re not going to be mine, go somewhere else and live your life.

They had the choice. You see, Moses is addressing a problem that’s still natural in our lives today. It’s just a tendency that people have and that’s the problem of mixing beliefs up, beliefs about God and beliefs that we bring into our relationship with God from the world around us. Moses wanted to make sure that the new generation didn’t make the same mistake that their parents did. Listen as God gives them a practical example of how they mix things up. In Amos, one of the prophets, he says, did you present me with sacrifices and grain offerings while you were in the wilderness for 40 years? Oh, house of Israel? The answer is yes, they did. They did what God told ’em to do. They presented offerings to ’em. They had a legitimate claim that they were following after the true God and doing what he said to do, but the next verse tells the rest of the story.

In Amos 5 26, it says, but you also carried along Shu and Caan and your images and the star gods and all the other things with you. You brought in those things that brought you security too. You brought it all with you. See, those were pagan, Assyrian gods, and we do that with our walk with God too. We bring things in with us. The problem of mixing beliefs is very natural to the human heart. It’s called syncretism today, at least in the theological terms and things we bat around. It’s a term that’s often used to practice of mixing beliefs. It comes from synchronize where at least two operations are coming at the same time. We saw an old, old, old Army movie a couple of weeks ago, and they’re in the midst of the battle and commander says, okay, guys, synchronize your watches. I haven’t heard that for years. You don’t do that anymore. They just work, so everybody set their watches so that they all operate together. That’s what synchronize means, trying to operate more than one thing at a time together. They use that for tribal people a lot, saying, okay, well, they have all their tribal customs with all their idols and everything like that, and then they take Christianity and they add ’em together and they’re into this synchronization or syncretism. You see, that’s what syncretism is, but syncretism is very, very much alive and well in our churches today.

You take materialism, capitalism, humanism, paganism, they’re all mixed up with church practices. We seem to blend right in with the culture around us. Just add Jesus to it. Examples are church as a democracy. We won’t find it in the Bible, but we do it. How about our voting, our policies? Those are all examples that they’re not bad in and of themselves, but if that’s what we turn to instead of God, then they’ve replaced them throughout the years. Holidays, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, all resemble more of the world’s values than God’s values. There’s a temptation to run church as a business to focusing on marketing strategies for success, and the gospel is regarded as more of a product than a relationship with God, but there’s even a more subtle way Synchronism affects our lives. It’s on the personal level. We have goals. Don’t we have written goals sometimes and sometimes we have unwritten goals. We have goals that will bring us prosperity, comfort, leisure, fun, relationships. These are all things that we highly value, and when Jesus comes along and says, he will meet all our needs according to his riches and glory, we say, okay, great, and we add ’em to the list of everything else for short-term security and wealth and happiness.

There’s a term for this. It’s called self-gratification. Self-gratification is really our main goal in life apart from Christ, and if Jesus can help satisfy me, great, I’ll take ’em on, but if not, well, I’ll pull some other trick out of my bag and try to find some satisfaction. We pack ’em into our heart with everything else and say, okay, God, when I need you, I’ll pull you out. The whole idea of accepting Jesus into our hearts, not even in the Bible, the words aren’t there. The idea is good. It’s a good idea, but if all he is is in our heart with everything else, that’s what he’s talking about, it’s him only see, we can get the idea that it’s all about me. It’s about me being saved, me going to heaven, me becoming whole again. All of these things are true of us, but only when Jesus is allowed full reign in our heart, when we allow him to have our heart without holding back.

See, this is done not just by outward observances, by taking communion, wearing a cross or anything like that. No, giving ourselves fully to him. I had two dogs. I had more than two dogs, but two dogs that I had for any period of time that had a major influence and one was radar and one was Sequoia. I think you might’ve seen radar before, but the difference between radar and Sequoia, well radar. We had him for, I don’t know, 10 or 12 years. He ran away once when it was about 10 below zero and we were all sick with the flu and we waved as he ran down the street and next day we figured he was either frozen, dead or in some little old lady’s house sitting in front of the fire, and so we called the pound and he was at the pound and we were still too sick to do anything about it, so we left him there a while and went and picked him up and he had gotten frozen.

His paws were stiff and he had some trouble and he smelled real bad. I don’t think he had a real good time in the slammer there, but he was a change of dog. When he came back, he never went anywhere. He knew the word no, just like that. I took him around the yard and we didn’t have a fence, and I showed him the boundary line and just gave a little tug on the leash and said, no next house. We moved into bigger piece of property, no fence, didn’t even use a leash. We walked to the edge and I said, no. He stopped from that point on next house had some acreage. I showed him and it was still no, and he still kept those boundary lines. Even if he was chasing a squirrel, Sequoia, man, as long as you had a treat in your hand, she might listen, but she’d you out first to make sure it was there and you’d get her to sit, stay, come about 10 feet away with a little clothes line or something, light a fish line, pull on her and she’d come, she’d come. She’d come take that fish line off of her zoom. She’s gone. Let me ask you, which dog was free, but he only did my will.

Are you free or you’re doing your own thing tied to a tree? That’s what we end up. God’s rules are not restrictive, therefore our good. When we allow Jesus control of our life, we’re saying, Lord, set me free. I trust you. I trust your love for me and I desire that I give full control, and you take that control. It’s like the man who tried to swim across the river and the current got to him and he’s going down river and he can’t make it. He’s drowning. There’s some people on the shore and they’re watching and they can’t help him. They’re not good enough swimmers, but there’s one guy with him who is big, strong muscular guy, great swimmer. They say, go save him, and he’s just standing there watching this guy drown, scream for help. Finally, the guy starts going under, he can’t make it anymore, and the big guy jumps in the water, swims out there, drags him back in.

Well, all the other people were giving him a hard time when he got back on shore. Why didn’t you save him? Why didn’t you go out there sooner? He says, well, I did save him, but as long as he thought he could do it in his own strength, there’s no way he’d let me help, and that’s where God wants us to see that we are totally dependent on him without our own strength. That’s what Moses wanted the people to understand. That’s what I want you to understand. That’s what all of us need to understand, that we are fully dependent on God to overcome the sin in our life, to please him, to please one another. Anything good in our life has got to come from him. We won’t get it by seeking it out ourself. As we understand that, then we know that the hedges and the boundaries he shows us in our life are for our good when we understand that he loves us and that we love him.

See, God doesn’t expect perfection, but he expects honesty. I need you, God, I can’t do this. That’s all. It’s his will over our will. That’s what Jesus showed us in communion, that, Lord, not my will be done, but your will be done. So if syncretism or some sort of defiance is allowed to go unchallenged in your life, you know it’s there. You’re holding on to it. There’s a real danger that Moses was trying to get across to the people that you may be living as though you think you’re a child of God, that you’re a part of his family and just doing your own thing, but be careful. You may not be. There were people that just played the game for a while in Israel and God judged him, and then in Matthew 15, eight it says, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, for they have replaced God’s commands with their own manmade teachings, divided hearts and synchronization.

See, tism see going through the motions isn’t enough. Don’t play the game. God knows, maybe fool some people for a while, but God knows if all you’re interested is in doing enough to keep God off your back, you’ll find yourself wandering in the desert a long, long time. Jesus spoiled the message to the next generation, down to two statements. We heard ’em earlier in Matthew 2237. It says, Jesus said, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself, and then here’s where the rules come in. Men, all the other commandments and all the other demands of the prophets are based on these two. You won’t have trouble with all the other stuff if you keep those two, follow these two commands and the rest takes care of itself.

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you not only have shown us a way, but you are the way and as we come to you and invite you into our heart and allow you to clean it out, Lord, we can’t even do that on our own. We are incapable of cleaning our own heart, but we can give you that privilege, and as you do that, Lord, you take us by the hand and lead us through life, through the hard times, through the good times. You don’t protect us from struggling, Lord, you go through it with us. But most of all, Lord, you give us hope, a hope for a bright future with you for eternity. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Original Sermon Date: November 6, 2005

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