Planned for God's Pleasure
Mark 12:28-34

Mike Royco reported this true story in The Chicago Tribune. A man named Bill Mallory traveled to India to discover the purpose of life. But he didn’t find the answer there.

So after returning, he noticed a sign at Chevron gas station that simply said, “As you travel, ask us.”

So every time he pulled into a Chevron station, he would look to the sign and say, “Hey, I’m a traveler. I’d like to ask you a question. What is the purpose of life?”

These were the real answers he got. I’m not making this up. The first guy said, “Sorry, Mac. I’m new here.”

The second guy said, “I don’t remember reading anything in the manual about that.”

Another guy said, “I’m not much for church myself, sir – sorry.”

One guy gave him a leering look and a wink, whatever that meant. However, most people just gave him a blank stare … but he kept asking at all the Chevron stations.

One day Mallory got a phone call from Chevron Customer Relations. They said, “We understand you’ve been asking our dealer questions and getting unsatisfactory answers.”

They suggested that Mallory write out his question and send it to Chevron Corporate headquarters with a self-addressed stamped envelope and they’d be glad to have someone respond.

So Bill Mallory wrote, “What is the purpose of life?” and sent it to Chevron. A couple of weeks later, the envelope was returned. And the only thing in it was an application for a credit card!

I hope we’ll be able to do better then that. Last week we talked about how we were created to be loved by God. This week we’re going to be looking at the flip side, the first purpose of our life, which is that God wants us to love him back.

According to this morning’s text: One day Jesus was walking down the street and a guy came up and asked, “Lord, what’s the most important commandment in the entire Bible?”

Jesus goes, “Okay, since you asked me so nicely, I’m going to give it to you. This is the most important thing – so pay attention. It summarizes the whole Bible. It’s this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment.”

In other words, he was telling the man, “Here’s what you’re supposed to do in life: you’re supposed to learn to love God back. Because God made you so he could love you and know you -- he wants you to know him and love him in return.”

There’s a word for this. It’s a word we often misunderstand and even misuse. It’s the word “worship.” Worship at its very basic is knowing and loving God back.

Now, the problem is, when we hear the word “worship” our minds are programmed to think of what? Well, most of us probably think of hymns, scripture lessons, sermons, candles, communion, baptism, prayer, stained glass windows – all the things that we experience during our morning “worship” service.

But see worship is far more than all those things.  It consists of anything we do or say or feel that shows our love and devotion to God. 

Therefore, if we are to honor God by obeying that first and great commandment -- our first purpose in life should be to worship God. It’s our highest priority. It is our number one purpose in life. Let’s dissect that a little more.   

“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 12:30

In other words God wants us to love him “with all our heart and soul”—passionately. With “all our mind”--thoughtfully.  And “with all our strength”—that’s the doing part – the practical part.

You see, the truth is that even though God created the entire world and the universe and he created you and me, there are three things God does not have unless you give them to Him.

He doesn’t have your affection, unless you give it to him. That’s loving God with your heart and your soul. 

He doesn’t have your attention unless you give it to him. That’s loving God with your mind - FOCUS.

And God doesn’t have your ability, unless you give it to him. That’s loving God with your strength – the things you do well – the doing part.

When we take the things God has given to us, and offer them back to God, that is the heart of worship.

Okay … I know this is out of order (according to the text) – but let’s look at loving God with our minds first.  God wants us to worship him with all of our minds—thoughtfully – focused, right? 

But, be honest now, how many times does worship become a routine to us, so that we pray our prayers on “autopilot”, we sing hymns without pondering the words, we even. . .perish the thought, let our minds wander during the sermon?

We have to make a conscious decision to focus our life upon God, again and again, because we are, by nature, self-focused creatures, aren’t we?

A paraphrase of Romans 12:2 says, “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God.” (The Message)

We do that through spending time with God every day – taking time for our daily devotions.

But let’s be very practical here. I know you’re all busy. I’m busy. Having a devotional life is hard, against our instincts, difficult to start, hard to keep up. But that is no excuse not to do it. It has to become important enough for us to carve out those 15 minutes a day. 

The very discipline of reading a chapter a day of “The Purpose Driven Life” will help us develop a habit of paying attention to God.

Truth be told, we make time for those things that are important to us. Schedule it into your day. Before you go to work, during lunch, before you allow yourself to watch TV, before you go to sleep at night. Do that consistently – for 40 days … and it becomes a habit.

There’s a second thing that you can do to focus on God, and that is develop a constant conversation with God. Psalm 105:4 says, “Worship him continually.” Just think about him throughout the day.

Now you have to make a conscious decision to do that … but it can be done in all sorts of ways. I heard of a guy who sets his watch to go off every 30 minutes so when it beeps, it reminds him to think about God, maybe to pray for the person he’s talking to, maybe just to say thank you...

Then there’s this woman who every time she gets into her car, she prays the first couple of minutes as she is going somewhere. It just reminds her to focus on God throughout the day.

Whatever you do, you develop this constant conversation throughout the day. It’ll help you focus – it will help you love God … with your mind; thinking about God; focusing on God.

Another way we are to love God is with our heart and soul.  In other words we are to love God passionately.

There was a science-fiction film many years ago called Cocoon, where several beings from a distant world were visiting earth. They looked just like us, but then their cover was blown and a few people here knew who they really were.

One of the aliens, in her human form, was a rather attractive girl. And towards the end of the movie, she and this human guy were in a swimming pool talking about love and marriage and so on.

Finally she asked the awkward question that was obviously on his mind. “Would you like for me to show you what the ‘act of love’ is like in our world?”

And he said, “Sure!”

They were standing in the pool, maybe 20 feet apart, and she didn’t even approach him. She just began to glow, to radiate, to envelop him in a warm blanket of something very holy, very cleansing.

A couple of minutes later, as it faded, still with no physical touch, you could see from his face that he had experienced something more cosmic, more unbelievable, than the best intimate moment he’d ever had in his life.

That’s the depth of passion God has for us.  Have you ever experienced the spirit just bathe you in God’s love?  It can be an incredible feeling.  God deserves no less in return.

Let me explain it another way.  I’ve only been married a little over four years but I know that if I walked up to my wife one day and said,

“Honey, here are some flowers for you. And I am giving you these flowers for three strategic reasons: Point No. 1, I am your husband. Point No. 2, it is our anniversary. Point No. 3, husbands are supposed to give their wives flowers on their anniversary. So here.”

… Her response would be anything but ecstatic.

Why? Because she wants me to love her passionately. She doesn’t want duty. She wants desire. God doesn’t want your duty. He wants your desire. He doesn’t want ritual and religion and rules and regulation. He wants a relationship. And he’s passionate about it!

Worship is also about loving God with all our strength. Which leads me to one more marriage analogy: I have been married long enough to know that it takes more than just words and kisses to express my love for my wife.

Yes, my wife likes me to tell her, “I love you, DeLynn.” And I try to tell her that every day. And she likes me to kiss her and be physically demonstrative.

But there’s another kind of love that is needed to back it up. That’s practical expressions of love. Sometimes there are chores to be done. Sometimes there are things that need to be fixed. Sometimes there are errands to be run. Sometimes there are responsibilities to be shared.

And that’s the practical part where I use my abilities to show, this is not just words, I really do love you and I show it by my action in practical ways – fixing, helping, serving, sharing, those kinds of things.

God is no different.  It’s in the practical aspects of serving that we can also show our love for God.  Caring for one another – feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, visiting those in prison … you all know the list.

Worship isn’t just for church. It is for everything we do.

The Message paraphrase of Romans 12:1 says, “Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.” That’s worship!

So, are we loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength? Are we putting our energies into worshipping him – first and foremost? Or is our worship directed elsewhere?

Some of us worship our careers more than God. Some of us are worshipping making money and some are worshipping retirement.

Some of us are worshipping pleasure. Some of us are worshipping another person who so dominates our life -- our total attention, affection and ability goes to that person.

          There are so many things that can distract us from God.  God doesn’t want to replace all of those … really he doesn’t.  He just wants to be #1!

The Bible says you were planned for God’s pleasure. You were made to know and love God. So this morning, I invite you to make as the number one goal of your life before everything else: Getting to know and love God - back.

I invite you to make as your goal what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 9:5, “So we make it our goal to please him.”

There’s not a better goal in life.

Amen!

Pastor Tom