LUKE 10:25-28 HOW TO INHERIT ETERNAL LIFE2012 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Luke 10:25-28 How To Inherit Eternal Life

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You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2012. Well, this morning as we look at Luke chapter 10 verses 25 through 28, I've titled our portion together, How to Inherit Eternal Life.

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How to inherit eternal life. And there's two points that we'll be looking at, two major points, and we'll break it up a little bit as we talk about the idea of inheriting eternal life. But before we get into the points, I want to take a moment and just get a quick overview of this story so that we have a good grasp of what is happening.

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So it begins with a question from a lawyer. And we find that in verse 25. It says, And so this lawyer asks a question. Now when we think of a lawyer, we think of someone in a courtroom presenting cases, that type of thing, you know, trials going on.

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A lawyer, though, in the context of the New Testament, who's this guy talking to Jesus, is not someone who's in a courtroom. It's not that kind of lawyer. A lawyer for them was someone who was an expert in the law of Moses.

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They were the ones who were charged with interpreting and applying the law of Moses to people's lives in that day. And so if you had a question, well, what does this verse mean in my life? Or I have this situation, and I know the scripture says this, but how does that apply or impact Moses?

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the situation that I'm in. So how do I get, you know, reconciliation in this circumstance? Or how do I get this issue resolved? And it would be the lawyers who would help the people interpret the law of Moses to their situation and their circumstances.

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And so they were experts. They were teachers of the law of Moses. So this expert in the law of Moses, in the Bible you could say, their scriptures, what they had at that time, he asked Jesus a question. It says that he tested the Lord. It doesn't necessarily mean that he was trying to trap him. The word could be used in a good or negative sense. But he asked the question, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

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And you know, this is a really good question. This is an important question to consider. Because I would imagine that you probably don't want to spend eternity in hell. You probably do want to have eternal life. And so you need to have this question and you need to know the answer to this question. Do you know the answer? He says, no.

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What shall I do to inherit eternal life? What's the answer? What must you and I do to inherit eternal life? This is the question that he asked Jesus. Well, then Jesus responds in verse 26 with a question. It says, he said to him, what is written in the law? What is your reading of it? So Jesus responds to this expert in the law. He says, hey, you're an expert in the law.

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What do you think it says? How do you read the scriptures? What do you understand from the Bible?

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is the things that you must do to inherit eternal life. I love that Jesus answers his question with another question. It's a tool that he used often. And so, you know, whenever you come to me and ask a question, and then I ask you a question, understand I'm not trying to be annoying. I'm just trying to be Christ-like. He asked the question, what do you see? What does the Bible say?

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How do you understand what the scriptures say to inherit eternal life? So the lawyer asks a question. Jesus asks a question in response. And now the lawyer responds to Jesus's question in verse 27. It says, so he answered and said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

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Now, as he answered this question, he did what you would expect an expert in the law to do. He quoted from the law. He quotes from Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 5 and Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18. You can check those out later on if you'd like to. That's Deuteronomy 6 5 and Leviticus 19 18.

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And so he says, well, here's my two favorite verses, Jesus. Here's what I think is the summary of how to inherit eternal life. I think it's these two verses that tell us what to do. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Well, then Jesus responds in verse 28. And he says to the lawyer, you have answered rightly. Do this.

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and you will live. This is a little bit surprising. Jesus responds, and he says, right on, you got the correct answer. Now that's surprising because, well, as we see Jesus encounter the experts in the law, the religious leaders, the Pharisees, throughout his ministry, usually they're at odds with one another. They're in opposition to each other. But here, this guy quotes these two verses from Moses' law,

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and says, this is what I think is essential in order to inherit eternal life. And Jesus says, yes, right on. You got the correct answer. In fact, in Matthew chapter 22, Jesus uses these same verses that the lawyer quotes, and he says, these are the two most important commands in the Bible.

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And there in Matthew 22 40, Jesus says, on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. That these two commands sum up the whole Bible. They sum up the whole law of God, and they are the key to inheriting eternal life. He says, you've got it right. So do this, and you will live.

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Do this and you will have eternal life. Here's how to have eternal life. What we have here is a very simple answer from Jesus with the instruction of how to inherit eternal life. And so we want to break this down here in verse 27. Learn what this means because it is essential for us to know. Because if you want to have eternal life, Jesus says, this lawyer has it right.

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Here's the way to have eternal life. So how do we get eternal life? Well, two points this morning that we'll look at. We're going to spend most of our time in the first point, which is love God. Love God is the first thing. The second point is going to be love your neighbor more.

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And we'll touch briefly upon that, but we're going to cover that more in depth next week as we continue on the passage as Jesus gives the parable of the Good Samaritan immediately after this. So we'll talk more about loving your neighbor next week, but we'll talk a little bit about it today. But we start out here with the first point. The lawyer quotes from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 5.

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And he says, here's what I see. The first and foremost thing, if you want to have eternal life, is you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. He says, you must love God. This word love, of course, it's the word agape in the Greek, which we often describe as a perfect or selfless love.

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It's one of those words that there's so much meaning to it, it's really hard to define it because every way you define it is excluding some other things that are also included. You can see an example of what this word love is from Paul's description in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. We call it the love chapter because he talks all about this kind of love. This love, it includes ideas like devotion, passion, affection, love.

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These different concepts that are all part of this idea of loving God. Now, when we talk about loving God, we also need to acknowledge that it's not exactly like love between two individuals. Love between two individuals is quite a bit different than loving God, even though it's the same word that's used oftentimes in loving one another or loving God.

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We understand, of course, that love is not just a feeling, even between two people. You know, if a husband and wife only love each other when they have these, you know, warm, fuzzy feelings, then that's going to be a limited amount of time, right? It's not going to be all the time. We understand that. Love is a commitment, that it's a decision, it's a choice.

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to do what's best for one another, to serve one another, to be committed to one another, whether or not you have the warm fuzzy feelings. Those, you know, are appropriate for different seasons and different days, but it's not always the case. It's not a hundred percent of the time. And the same is true when we think about this idea of loving God. If we only love God when we have warm fuzzy feelings about God,

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then we're not going to be loving God all the time. It's going to be a limited amount of time, only when we get these certain feelings or certain emotions that come to us. It's a commitment, really, to love God no matter what, through thick and thin. But more importantly, as we consider this command to love God, is what we must factor in the reality that He is God.

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When we talk about loving God, we must also acknowledge in that that he is God. You see, when we love one another, it's love between peers. That you and I, we're the same at the foot of the cross. We're equals before the Lord. But when it comes to loving God, he's not our equal.

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He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And our love of God must acknowledge that. It must factor in that reality of who He is. It must factor in that He is our Creator. That He deserves our devotion. He expects our adoration. He's worthy of our devotion to Him. So with that in mind, loving God includes love.

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Not just this commitment, not just this devotion to him, but it includes obedience and surrender to him. Consider what Jesus said in John chapter 14 verse 21. Jesus said, He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. He says in another place, if you love me, keep my commands. Jesus permanently links love and obedience together.

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When it comes to this idea of loving God. Now that's very different from loving one another. Right? It's only the people that obey me, that love me.

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Well, that's a real low number then, right? Hey, if you love me, you have to obey everything I say. We don't have those kinds of relationships. You and I, as we love one another, that's not what our love is like. Our love is serving one another, not obeying one another. But when it comes to loving God, again, it needs to factor in the reality that He is God. And that then requires, well, love God.

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Also includes obedience and surrender. Jesus said, if you have my commandments and keep them, then you're the one who loves me. And so as we talk about loving God, there's many aspects that we could consider. It's a great depth of a subject that we could get into. But today, I want to spend our time focusing on this particular aspect of it. That is, to love God is to surrender to him as Lord.

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To love God is to surrender to him. That he is God and he is the Lord and you will obey him and keep his commands. That's what it means to love God. Well, so the lawyer quotes Deuteronomy 6 and he says, you shall love the Lord your God with all. We'll stop there for just a moment. With all. You shall love the Lord your God with all. The word all, it means whole or completely whole.

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And so what we're seeing here is that the love that we have for God is not only an obedience to him and a surrender to him, but it's a total surrender. It's a total obedience. It's a full and complete devoting of ourselves to God. As he goes on to mention the different aspects, all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your strength and all of your mind.

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Over and over, God is saying, look, it's everything about you. It's all that you are. That's how you're to love God. And that's how you inherit eternal life. Love the Lord your God with all your heart. You know, sometimes I think that we like to pretend that we don't know what this means. We look at it and we go, okay, I'm not sure I get it. I'll just move on to the next verse. Don't want to spend too much time there. I might get convicted. But that's exactly what we're going to do.

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Spend some time. Let's consider. What does this mean to love the Lord your God with all your heart? How do you do that? What does that look like? How do you love him with all your mind and all of your soul? But it boils down to this question. Again, you know what it means. We just sometimes don't like to face it head on. But here's the question. Do you have an all-consuming love for God? Does that describe you? Do you have an all-consuming love for God?

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You know if you do. And I can tell you, the people around you know if you do. Because it consumes everything. It's a part of everything. It impacts every aspect of your heart. And that's what we see as he breaks it down between heart and soul and strength and mind. And so we're going to take each one of these and just talk about them each individually. Now, as we do this,

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Heart, soul, strength, and mind. You know, there's a lot of overlap there. It's difficult to really, you know, define them and, you know, make them completely separate from each other. They're all overlapping and intertwining. But we'll look at them in a way to be able to grasp hold of something. And again, focusing on the idea that loving God is to surrender to Him as Lord. And so what does that mean regarding loving God with all your heart?

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Well, of course, your heart is that organ that you have that pumps blood throughout your body. But that's not really what is intended, as God says, to love him with all your heart. The word heart, it's used to describe the source of your emotions, of your passions, your desires, your appetites, your affections, your purposes, and your plans.

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The word heart is used to describe that inner part of us where our emotions, our feelings are from, our passions come from there, our plans come from there, that it's this internal part of us that is the source of all these things. And so we are to love God with all our hearts. And what does that mean? What does that look like? Well, I would ask you to consider first how easy it is

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for us to be ruled by our emotions. So many times we're mastered by our emotions. Whatever the emotion may be, fear or anger or love or whatever it might be. Many times in our life, feelings are king. That we do what feels good or what we feel like doing. We do what's convenient, what fits us.

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the way that we feel about it at that particular time. Now, here's the problem with that. We will never feel like fully committing ourselves to God. We might have kind of a little spike, you know, maybe in the middle of a worship service, we're like, oh, it's such a beautiful song. Yes, I just, I commit myself totally to you, Lord. And we might have that feeling for a moment, but it's not lasting.

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When we hit the parking lot, that feeling is not there. When we get on the freeway, the feeling is gone. When we get home, it's a distant memory. That feeling doesn't last. And so if we're governed by our feelings, if our feelings are our master, then we're not going to be wholly committed to the Lord because that's not something that you will always feel like doing. You could think of it in the sense of the athletes who are competing right now in the Olympics.

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If they only trained when they felt like it, they would not be athletes. They would be me. I only train when I feel like it. Yeah, when it's convenient. You know, if it happens to be the right temperature outside and it happens to be the right day of the month and, you know, everything just lines up perfectly and I feel like it, well, then maybe I'll think about possibly wanting to try to consider to train.

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But the problem is, that's the approach that sometimes people take with their love for God, their Christian life, their devotion to Him. That when it's convenient, when it all lines up, when there's nothing else in the way, when I feel like it, when it feels comfortable, when I... But the problem is, those feelings, they're not going to be there. They don't last. We can't let our feelings and our emotions be our master.

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To love God is to surrender to him as Lord. When we're talking about loving with all of our heart, we're talking about giving our whole heart to the Lord. And I'm going to define that this way. Make him Lord of every emotion. To love God with all your heart is to make him Lord of every emotion.

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Now there's much more that we could talk about regarding the heart. I'm talking about one aspect of it. But it's enough for God to challenge us. It's enough for God to work in our hearts this morning. God says, fear not. How many times in the scriptures? Over and over and over again. And yet how many times are we mastered by fear? And fear keeps us from doing things that we know God wants us to do.

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Fear keeps us from doing things that we know we need to be doing. Fear keeps us and holds us back and we're consumed by fear. God says, do not worry. Jesus went through great detail in that in Matthew chapter 6. Do not worry about what you're going to eat and where you're going to stay and how you're going to live. Don't worry about those things. And yet, how much time do we spend worrying? Because

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Well, we let those emotions, those feelings be our master. God says rejoice. Take joy. Consider it pure joy when you encounter all kinds of trials and tribulations. And how often do we do that? Oh, it's real difficult in the middle of a trial to consider it pure joy because, well, our feelings are our master. I would ask you to consider the psalmist in Psalm 42, 11.

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He's talking to himself, which is a good practice for us. He says, why are you cast down, oh my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him, the help of my countenance and my God. He's talking to himself. He says, hey soul, heart, inner feelings, you're being emotional right now and you're downcast. Why are you being downcast?

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Why are you feeling that way? Why are you disquieted? You're all worrying and stressing and frazzled. Why are you feeling like that? And notice what he's doing. He's redirecting himself. He says, hope in God. Stop feeling like that. Hope in God. He says, for I shall yet praise him. God's going to come through. I can trust in him. I can hope in him. And I'm going to praise him through the midst of this.

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And I'm going to praise him at the end result of this. I will yet praise him. He's working his own heart, working his own emotions, demonstrating to us that we do not have to be mastered by these emotions, that we don't have to be mastered by our feelings, but we can say to ourselves, why are you downcast? I'm going to praise God. I'm going to hope in God. Why are you worrying? Why are you

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I'm going to trust him to provide and handle these things. Make him Lord of every emotion. Think about it this way. Here comes this feeling, whatever it might be. Take it to the Lord. God, do you authorize me to feel this way? You ever do that? Do you authorize me to fear in this situation? Oh, you don't authorize me to fear? Well, what am I supposed to do? Trust you? Is he Lord or not?

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Make Him Lord over every emotion. Self, soul, heart, however you want to address yourself. I'm not allowed to fear in this. God told me I have to trust Him. So I'm going to trust Him. Because He's my Lord, you're not my Lord. Here comes the downcast feeling. God, do you authorize me to be downcast? We need to make Him Lord over every emotion. That's what the word all means.

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart. Make him Lord over every emotion. You know, one thing that we see often within the church is people who become mastered by the particular feeling of condemnation. And a person begins to feel condemned, beat down. Man, I blew it. I messed up. I didn't do what I was supposed to do or I did what I wasn't supposed to do. Whatever the case, but there's just now this condemnation.

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And the enemy loves that feeling. That's one of his favorite emotions. And he says, yeah, you're right. You're terrible. You might as well just give up. God doesn't want to do anything with you. He doesn't want you to come to church because look how terrible you are. You're probably not even a Christian. That condemnation. And when we allow that to master our lives, it just knocks us out of our whole Christian walk. But listen, God hasn't authorized you to feel condemned. Romans chapter 8, verse 1.

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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You don't have the right, the authority as a believer in Jesus to feel condemned. The emotions will rise up, but you have to make Him the Lord of those emotions and say, no, this is what He says. I will not be condemned because there's no condemnation in Christ Jesus. We must make Him Lord of every emotion.

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to love him with all of our hearts. Well, then he goes on to say, with all your soul. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. What does it mean to love God with all your soul? Well, the word soul literally means breath. It's that vital force which animates the body and shows itself in breathing. How can you tell if someone is alive?

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Well, you can check their pulse, their heart, right? We just talked about that. Or you can check their breathing. Are they still breathing? Is there breath? Is there life? The life and the breath, they're connected together. And so to love God with all your soul, with all your life, with all your breath. And so I suggest to you, to love God with all your soul is to make Him Lord over every breath.

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Over every breath. You know it's so easy for us to try to limit God to certain aspects of our life. We give him, alright God, you've got this time slot. 10.30 to 12 o'clock on Sundays, I'm all yours. Sometimes 12.05 because Jerry goes over, that's okay. But at 12.06, I'm out of here. It's back to my time and I've got stuff to do.

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We try to limit God to certain times. We give Him the parameters. And you can work within these parameters, God. You can touch these areas of my life, but not these areas. You can do these things, but not those things. As long as I have this, then that's fine. But we give Him the parameters. We try to limit Him to certain times, to certain areas of our life. But to love God with all your soul is to make Him Lord of every breath.

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You can't get much more basic than that because breathing is something that, well, it just continues to happen automatically. And God says, I want you to make a choice, make a decision that each breath will be an act of devotion to me. Make each breath an act of devotion to God. This is for you, Lord. I live for you. Praise you, Lord.

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Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. That each moment, that each breath would be devoted to Him. Love God with all your soul. Now you might be thinking, now Jerry, you're kind of going a bit much on this, taking this probably a little bit too far. But then I would ask you, well, how would you define all? I mean, really, what could we do? How would we minimize this word? Well, I think really what it means is, you know, love God with most of your heart.

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Love God with most of your soul. You know, that's what I think he means. I mean, you know, he used the word all, but really he means most. That's wrong. We can't just modify the scriptures because we don't like how it applies to our lives. Well, my Bible says, you know, love God with some of your soul and some of your heart. Well, burn that Bible. Make sure nobody else reads it because...

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That's not how to inherit eternal life. Listen, the question is, where do you want to spend eternity? Here's what it takes. You must love God with all your heart and with all your soul. And then he continues on, with all your strength. The word strength, it's this idea of force or might or ability. It's really talking about the physical things, the physical strength.

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elements of your life, the energy that is expended. And to love God with all your strength, I would suggest to you, is to make Him Lord over every action. Make Him Lord over every action. How much do you do every day? Do you have a long to-do list? Lots of things to do? You're quite busy? How much energy do you expend?

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And I know we're hesitant to answer those questions because we know the follow-up question is, how much of that is for God? Really, consider. How much of your actions, your activities, your to-do list, how much of the energy that you expend is for God? He says, with all your strength, with all your might, with all your ability, with all your energy, love the Lord your God.

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What does that mean? How far does that extend? Well, I would ask you to consider the words of the Apostle Paul, Colossians 3.17. He says, and whatever you do, how much does that include? Everything. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all, there's our favorite word, right? Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

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Paul says, whatever you do, whether it's you're talking, whether you're doing something, do all, do everything, every action, all your energy, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

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Oh, you don't like that verse? That's not one of your favorites? Okay, 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31. Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all, same word, do all to the glory of God. You see, you can try to run from it. You can squirm a little bit. You can, oh, I don't really think that verse is talking about that. But you can't get around it. This is what the Bible says. God is asking you, he's requiring of you, that you...

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Make him Lord of every action. He's really requiring it all. From head to toe. From sun up to sun down and in between. From birth to death. You're to give it all to him. To love the Lord your God. Think about it this way. Every calorie burned for Jesus. I like that thought. Burn every calorie for Jesus. That's what he asks.

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That's what it takes to love God with all your strength. Well, then the fourth aspect is to love the Lord your God with all your mind. How do you do that? What does that look like? Well, the word mind, it's the operation of the understanding, the thought, and the imagination. Understanding, thought, and imagination. You know, it's so easy for us to be ruled by

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By our own understanding or to lean on our own understanding. I think there's a verse that talks about that somewhere. Right? Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord with... Uh-oh. Here it is again. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. It's easy for us to be ruled by our understanding. We live by what we think. And we make decisions based upon what we understand. Right?

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We base our life on our own understanding. And God says, you need to love me with all your mind. And that means you need to make me Lord of every thought. To love God with all your mind means to make him Lord of every thought. That you don't base your life on what you understand. Here's what we do. Well, I don't understand that verse.

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I don't think it applies. It doesn't make sense to me. Or, God, I don't understand how that's going to help. I don't understand what's going on, so I have to worry about it. We base our decisions, we base our lives on what we think. And God says clearly, don't do that. Believe me over your own self. Trust me over your own thoughts. Hold to my counsel instead of your own counsel. Make him Lord.

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of every thought. Again, we take our thoughts to the Lord. We say, God, I have this thought. Do you authorize me to think about this? Do you ever do that? You don't have the right to think about whatever you want to think about. Not if you're going to love God with all your mind. Well, if you're going to live your own life and do whatever you want to do, well, sure, go ahead. But if you want to inherit eternal life and therefore you want to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, listen, you don't have the authority to just let your mind wander and think about whatever you want to think about.

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You need to make Him Lord of every thought. Not leaning on your own understanding. This word mind also includes the imagination. God, do you authorize me to imagine this? You know you and your significant other, right? You've got these great plans. Oh, these dreams for the future. Did God authorize you to make those dreams? To make those plans? To have those imaginations? To have those thoughts? To love God with all your mind is to make Him Lord of everything.

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To give him full reign. Full authority. Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. The idea of taking every thought captive. And making it subject to Jesus. That we have to check our thoughts. Say no that's not a thought that God wants me to meditate on or consider. The thoughts will come. You're going to have the thoughts. But you have to make him Lord. And say God doesn't want me thinking on that. Or the other way. Think on these things.

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Like Paul said, whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, whatever's of good report, think on the things of God. Use your mind to focus on God because you love Him with all your mind. And so the lawyer quotes Deuteronomy 6. He says, I think I know how to have eternal life, how to inherit eternal life. Love God.

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With all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. And as we consider this, again, we've just been considering one aspect of these things, but it's enough for us to seriously be challenged and to recognize that you cannot simply add God to your life. You know, you carve out some time, some space for him. Okay, here God, here's your spot. Like clearing out the guest room, all right? You could stay here, God.

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That's not the way it works. If you're using the guest room analogy, it's like this. Bulldoze the house. God says, I'm going to build a new one. Throw it out and build a new life based on what God says. You can't just add God to your life. He's not just like a hobby or like a side job. You just kind of, you know, do it on the side. No, you must give him everything. Now, what does this mean though? What does that look like in real life?

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Does that mean that you're only supposed to read the Bible and pray? And if you do anything else at any time, well, you've failed. You don't love God. That's not what the Lord is saying. Because God, most likely, has called you in obedience to Him to be in the workplace. And He's given you a job to do.

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But what you need to recognize is that's for him. That's not for you. We think of it like, well, I got to provide for my family. I got to make provision and, you know, bring in the money. I got to take care. And that's good. Yeah. Good desire to feed your family. But don't make provision your Lord. Provision is not your Lord. He's your Lord. And most likely that job is the way that he's chosen to provide. But he could also say, no, no.

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I don't want that job for you no more. Well, how am I going to provide? Well, that's not your responsibility. Don't make provision your Lord. Well, I have to provide. That comes first. That's foremost. God says, no, love me with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Put me first. You follow me. You don't understand? Love me with all your mind and lean not on your own understanding. You can't figure it out? That's okay. That's not your job. It's my job because I'm the Lord. God can move you to Zimbabwe.

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Or Greece. Or Japan. That's the extent of my geographical knowledge. He can move you anywhere. He's Lord. Oh, but my family's here. He's Lord. Either He's Lord or He's not Lord. But I really like this job. I have these great plans for this career. He's Lord. Make Him Lord. And God also probably gives you some free time. He's not a cruel master.

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Sin's a cruel master. The world, the devil, they're cruel masters. But God is not a cruel master. He also gives you things to enjoy and great opportunities to enjoy life. But don't make pleasure your Lord. Well, I can't do this because then it cuts and interferes. You know, I got to have my golf time. I got to have, you know, this. I mean, I can't bend from that. Now that's become your Lord. That's your master. Now that governs what you do. No, make him your Lord.

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And He'll give you time. He'll take care of your needs. You'll find that, well, as Jesus promised in Him, you have abundant life. Life overflowing. Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind might seem like, oh man, it's going to be this huge bummer. Like I'm just going to be discouraged and difficult all the time because I can't do nothing I want. I just got to make Him Lord all the time. But the reality that you'll find is this is the best life possible.

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When you put Him first, because it's for this reason that you were created. To glorify Him, to honor Him. When you find that this is your purpose, you realize, this is what I'm here to do, this is what I was created to do, you will learn that this is the best life possible to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.

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This word love also includes this willingness. It's a joyful surrender. It's not an obligation like, oh man, this is so terrible. It's joyful. Willingly surrender yourself. Make him Lord of every aspect, of every detail of your life. And you'll find his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Well, the second part to this, he quotes Deuteronomy 6, love God and

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This is how to inherit eternal life, the lawyer says. Well, he also says, love your neighbor as yourself, quoting from Leviticus chapter 19. Now, as we come to this idea of loving your neighbor, you might be thinking, well, what's left for others? I mean, we just went through all this, all, all, all, all, all, everything, everything, everything, everything. How is there anything left to love your neighbor as yourself? If we love God this way, how can we love anybody else?

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Because we kind of picture it like a pie chart, right? Our heart's a pie chart. All right, 10% goes to this, 10% goes to that. My wife gets 75%, 5% goes to the kids, you know, whatever. However you kind of picture it, right? But you have this, you can only, you only have so much to give. And now God says, I want it all. So how can I have anything else to love somebody else around me? But what you need to understand is when you love God, now the source has changed.

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Without God, your love for others is based on your own self. What you can conjure up. And really it's based on what you feel for people. And so you're limited. How many people can you love? Well, it's based on how many feelings of love I can conjure up for the people around me. But that's without Christ. That's before God. When you love God with all your soul, with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your mind, now the source has changed.

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Now to love your neighbor as yourself, you're loving because Jesus commands you to, not because you feel some emotion or some warm fuzzy or you're able to conjure up some feelings of love for somebody. The source now is the Lord himself and it's obedience to his command that enables you to love, not whatever feelings that you might have. He becomes the source and the reason for love. And so when he is Lord of all,

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then you can love anybody that he tells you to love. Because it's out of obedience. You can even do what Jesus said in Luke 6, 27. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. And we look at that and we go, oh my goodness. That's a hard one. I mean, that's so difficult. This guy hates me. I'm supposed to love him. How am I going to do that? Oh man. It's because we're mastered by our emotions. I don't feel like loving this guy. We've got to go back to the beginning. Love God with all your heart.

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It's not about whether you feel like it or not. Don't let that master. God says do it. It's a matter of obedience, not feelings, not what you can conjure up. We think it's so hard to love our enemies partially because our feelings are our master, but also we have this mistaken idea that it's easier to love God than people. We think it's, oh yeah, I can love God. That's no problem. But man, this guy irritates me. He's always right here. He's in front of my face. And oh, it's so hard to love this guy.

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We think it's easier to love God than people, but that's not true. That's false. John tells us in 1 John 4, if someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. Let's just pause and reflect for a moment there. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he's not seen? John says, hello, the person right in front of you is way easier to love than God whom you can't see.

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That requires a serious faith and commitment to love God whom you've not seen. That's more difficult than loving the person who's right in front of you. And we think, no way, it's easier to love God because he doesn't bug me so much. But that's not what the Bible says. Don't lean on your own understanding. Recorrect your thinking. Recorrect your emotions. John goes on to say, this commandment we have from him that he who loves God must love his brother also. You can't separate the two.

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First of all, you can't love your neighbor without loving God first. Maybe you could love him in a single moment or in a single action, but you can't live a life of love for your neighbor or the people around you, your brother. You have to love God first. He's the only one who can give you the resources to be able to love people in that way. But when you love God, God says, okay, now love your neighbor. Love your neighbor.

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We'll talk more about that next week, what that means in depth, in detail. But the word neighbor, it comes from the root word which just means nearby or close by. It's the people around you. Love the people around you. Do what's best for them. Care for them. Seek God's best for them. And so the lawyer comes up with this response, these two quotations. He says, this is what I think is necessary for eternal life.

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And Jesus says in Luke 10.28, you have answered rightly. Do this and you will live. If you want to have eternal life, here's how. Love God and love your neighbor. Does anybody fall short of this kind of love? Anybody wrestle with this a little bit? Like, oh man, Lord over every emotion and every breath and every action and every thought. Anybody fall short on this?

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Yes, we all do, every single one of us. You know why? It's because of our sinful nature. Paul tells us in Galatians 5.14 that all the law is fulfilled in one word, one command. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said on these two commands, love God, love your neighbor, all the law and the prophets hang. These are the summary of the entire Bible. Love God and love your neighbor. And so yes, of course we fall short.

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If you were able to do this without falling short, you would be absolutely perfect, able to keep every law of God. And we don't do that. We mess up. We fall short. And that's why we need a Savior. That's why Jesus died. Because we're unable to love God the way that He requires us to love Him. We're unable to love our neighbor the way that we're required to love them. But that does not change the standard. And this is really important. That doesn't change the standard.

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That doesn't mean that you can say, well, I fall short in that area. I don't really love God that well. I don't give Him, you know, lordship over all my emotions. So, you know, I guess that's just how I am. And thank goodness for Christ because He died on the cross for me. That's not how it works, guys. The standard is still, love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. That's what you're to pursue. That is what you're to strive for.

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That's your goal. That's the standard. You will fall short and thank goodness that when you do, you can call out to Christ and say, Lord, forgive me for my sin. Forgive me for my weakness. Forgive me for my rebellion, my disobedience. But repentance is not then just, well, continuing, I guess that's how it is, and then you continue on in that disobedience. No, you turn back and you say, I'm going to stop failing in this area. I'm going to stop choosing to let my emotions rule over me.

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I'm going to stop leaning on my own understanding and I'm going to start loving God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind. And so this morning as we consider how to inherit eternal life, I want to challenge you to consider the standard. You can't reach it apart from Christ. It's why we need a Savior. And so if you have not received Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and been born again,

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believing in Him as He commanded us to, well, that's where you start. And you need to believe in Jesus Christ and turn to Him and understand this is a serious commitment. It's your whole life. Not just adding Him to a little piece, a little compartment of your life. You've got to surrender everything to Him. And for those of you who are believers already, you've got to understand. It isn't that you just continue on in the same weaknesses and failures that you always have. You've got to cry out for forgiveness and then get back up

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And seek to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would help us this day to receive your word. To really believe it. To recognize the value and the importance of it. I pray, Lord, that you would open our eyes to the reality of eternity. And Lord, as we understand.

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What is at stake? Help us to love you with all that we are. With every moment, with every breath. Help us to follow you and seek after you. And in obedience to love our neighbors as well. Lord, draw us near to you. We see clearly from this how desperately we need you. So God, work in our lives. Help us to love you more and more. To give ourselves completely to you. Because you're worthy of it. You deserve it.

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You are Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.