Habit 6: Love God With All Your Heart by Garden City Church

Habit 6: Love GOD with all your heart

Since before the creation of the universe the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy

Spirit—have delighted in and loved one another. Out of an overflow of this love our relational God created humans. We are created by relationship, for relationship. God created us to love. We are designed to give our first love, our worship, to the only one worthy of it: our Creator, our King, our Lord. But because of the great human problem of sin, we’ve instead chosen to give our first love and worship to false gods—to idols. An idol is anything (even a good thing) that’s more important to you than God (sin is parasitic—sin attaches to something good that God has created and distorts it). Our love of idols dishonors God, enslaves us, and hurts others. Jesus came to set us free from our misdirected loves and empower us to be a people who love God first—with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

MEMORIZE

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ - Mark 12:28-30

STUDY AND DISCUSS DEUTERONOMY 6:4-9 (THE SHEMA) AND MARK 12:28-34.

What are the two different contexts of these two passages? What differ-

ence do you notice in how Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6, and what do you think this is about? Create a list of reasons why you think Jesus calls this the most important commandment of all. Then, create a list of why we often struggle to live our lives in accordance with what’s most important, why we put other loves first. What connections can you make among these passages, your stories that you shared (Habit 3), current events in our culture, and the core book you are reading? What do the last few verses of the Deuteronomy text, Deuteronomy 6:6-9 teach us about discipleship, and what connection do you see here between our main discipleship verse, 1 Thessalonians 2:8?

SEE HUMANS FUNDAMENTALLY AS “LOVERS,” NOT “THINKERS.”

Thinking well is incredibly important, but the biblical worldview gives us a

richer and deeper portrait of humanity—at our core we are lovers created in the image of a loving God, and what drives and shapes our lives is our loves. Since the European Enlightenment Period’s (17th-18th century) emphasis on reason, Western culture has tended to reduce people to brains only, missing the epicenter of the heart and of love. When you look at another person don’t primarily see a thinker, see a lover whose heart needs to be captured by the Great Lover.

James K.A. Smith

“Every approach to discipleship and Christian formation assumes an implicit model of what human beings are…we have been taught to assume that human beings are fundamentally thinking things… ‘You are what you think’ is a motto that reduces human beings to brains-on-a-stick…Do you ever experience a gap between what you know and what you do? Have you ever found that new knowledge and information don’t seem to translate into a new way of life? …Paul tells us that the place to start is by attending to our loves. There is a very different model of the human person at work here. Instead of the rationalist, intellectualist model that implies ‘You are what you think,’ Paul’s prayer hints at a very different conviction: ‘You are what you love.’ …Discipleship should set us on fire, should change the ‘weight’ of our love…discipleship is a rehabituation of your loves.”

IDENTIFY AND REPENT OF THE CORE IDOL YOU TEND TO LOVE INSTEAD OF GOD.

Our biggest problem is not individual sins we commit and bad choices we

make, but something deeper: idolatry, worship, misdirected love. It’s because we give our first love, awe, and allegiance to someone or something other than God that we stumble in sin. Everyone has to live for something and if that something isn’t the one true God, it will be a false God–an idol. An idol is anything more important to you than God. Therefore, you can turn even very good things into idols. You can turn a good thing like family, success, acceptance, money, your plans, etc. into a god thing–into something you worship and place at the center of your life. This is what sin is. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything (even a good thing) more than God.

In our church family we talk about 4 root idols that we tend to attach our lives

to. As a group, identify which idol you are most prone to worship, share strategies for turning away from this idolatry, make connections to your story (Habit 3), and repent together. Make repenting of idolatry and sin an ongoing habit of your Discipleship Group. • CONTROL You know you have a control idol if your greatest nightmare is uncertainty. • APPROVAL You know you have an approval idol if your greatest nightmare is rejection. • COMFORT You know you have a comfort idol if your greatest nightmare is stress/demands. • POWER You know you have a power idol if your greatest nightmare is humiliation. Here’s what you need to know about your idol: That idol that you love, it doesn’t love you back. False gods don’t love you. Idols don’t keep their promises. Anything you worship and build your life on other than God will suck the life out of you and destroy you. A relationship with Jesus starts when you identify and turn from your idols. Notice what Jesus was always doing with people during his ministry–he was constantly identifying and challenging people’s idols, calling them to turn from their false objects of worship in order to follow and worship him. We’re convinced that the reason there is so much shallow Christianity in our culture is because many people never displace the idolatry in their lives with Jesus, but instead simply bring in Jesus as an “add on” to their life, keeping their idolatry firmly in the center. Americans think freedom is found in casting off all restraint and being masters of our own lives. What we are blind to is the reality that everybody has a master. We all worship something and whatever we worship is our master. Idols make bad masters. They enslave. Until you identify the idols in your life you will feel enslaved, tired, and unhappy and you won’t know why. You will feel this way until you discover the only master who can set you free: Jesus. Jesus is the one master who will love you even when you fail him. Your idols don’t do that. Jesus is the one master who loved you when you were at your worst and who reigns over your life with perfect wisdom, power, and goodness. He’s the one master you can trust. Only he can give you freedom.

Little children, keep yourselves from idols - 1 J o h n 5 : 2 1

“Our idolatries are less like conscious decisions to believe a falsehood and more like learned dispositions to hope in what will disappoint. Our idolatries are not intellectual; they are affective— instances of disordered love and devotion. Idolatry is caught more than taught. We practice our way into idolatries, absorb them from the water in which we swim.”

- James K.A. Smith 55

DISTURB PEOPLE’S IDOLS.

Shallow discipleship is a result of people’s root idolatry not being exposed

and disturbed. Much of Jesus’ ministry on earth involved radically disrupting what stood at the center of people’s lives, exposing that idols inability to save and satisfy, and showing that only God can fill the God-sized hole in the human heart. Create a culture of disturbing one another’s idols, poking at what has become too important in one’s life and pointing them back towards their proper first love. Jesus did this through conversation (disturbing the money idolatry of the rich young ruler), adventures (disturbing the comfort idolatry of his disciples by leading them into a storm at sea), feasts (disturbing the legalism idolatry of the Pharisees), teaching (telling parables that turned things upside down), etc. Discuss as a group how you can become better idol disturbers. The following questions are great idol disturbers (adapted from Darrin Patrick): • What do I worry about most? • What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel like I didn’t even want to live? • What do I use to comfort myself when things go bad or get difficult? • What do I do to cope? What are my release valves? What do I do to feel better? • What preoccupies me? What do I daydream about? • What makes me feel the most self-worth? Of what am I the proudest? For what do I want to be known? • Early on what do I want to make sure people know about me? • What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God? • What do I really want and expect out of life? What would really make me happy?

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.”

- Saint Augustine “…you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.”

MEMORIZE

- 1 Thessalonians 5:9

We love because he first loved us. - 1 John 4:19

MEMORIZE

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. - Zepheniah 3:17

BECOME AN OVERFLOWER—ENJOY AND LOVE GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, FOR HE ENJOYS AND LOVES YOU WITH ALL OF HIS HEART.

God loves you! He doesn’t love you because he “has to,” out of duty and

obligation. God loves to love you, he delights in you, you’re his child and he enjoys you. The more awake we can be to how much God loves us (Habit 4, Enjoying our Grace-Based Identity) the more we find ourselves in awe of God and loving him with all our heart. We are like fountains. God pours his love into us, and it overflows out of us—becoming a love we give back to God and give to our neighbor. You can never go wrong with loving God 100%, because this is what you are created for and what you will spend eternity enjoying and doing. Discuss the verses below and share specific habits you’re trying out that help you live more awake to God’s love and more focused on seeking him first and loving him with all your heart.

“Faith means being pregnant with God’s life, which is divine overflowing life.”

- Peter Kreeft

MEMORIZE

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. - Matthew 6:33

“To encounter God is to change.”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

REALIZE THAT LOVE IS A VERB, A VERB REQUIRING OUR HEAD, HEART, AND HANDS.

Loving God certainly involves our feelings, but generally feelings follow our

actions. We don’t feel our way to an action, instead we act (obey) our way to a feeling. As we take action to love God, feelings follow. Our wholistic love for God includes our: • Head: loving God with all our mind, developing a biblical theology and worldview by which to relate to God and engage the world. • Heart: loving God with all our heart and soul, connecting with and giving Jesus his rightful place as Master of our lives and emotions. • Hands: loving God with all our strength and skills, using our strength and abilities to serve God. Discuss as a group which of these (Head, Heart, or Hands) is most undeveloped in your relationship with God, and how you can help one another mature in these areas.

John 15:9-10

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.”

SING LOUD!

Whether gathered as the church in a worship service or scattered as the

church and driving alone in your car, whether you have a good voice or a terrible voice, we want to be a church known for singing loud to our great God. Passionate singing is a repeated way the Scriptures call us to respond to the gospel and express our love for God. Lovers sing. God is worthy of our singing—he is glorious, he treats us better than we deserve, and our singing affirms what we believe is true about God. God created us to sing, and perhaps one of the greatest witnesses for God’s existence is a church that sings happy and loud. And, this is practice for heaven where we will spend eternity in ever-increasing, joyful awe and praise of God.

“Love God and do as you please.” Saint Augustine “A Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot.”

MEMORIZE

“Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!” - Psalm 47:1

MAIN TAKEAWAY: We’re a church of disciples who practice the habit of loving God with all our heart, which includes a lifestyle of repenting of idolatry and awakening to how much God first loves and delights in us.

What is God saying to you?

What’s your next step?

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FOR HABIT 6: Counterfeit Gods, Tim Keller You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith Trusting God, Jerry Bridges Garden City Worship Albums Habits of the Mind, James W. Sire Enjoying God, Sam Storms Crazy Love, Francis Chan Delighting in the Trinity, Michael Reeves The Christian Mind, Harry Blamires The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer Feelings and Faith, Brian Borgman The God Who Loves You, Peter Kreeft