All your heart
Intro
• I want to read to you a parable of modern life that I came across recently:
Once there was a young girl whose parents took her to the shrine of the Golden Arches. There she saw an opportunity to buy a combination of food and a little toy that someone, in a fit of marketing genius, named the Happy Meal. “May I have it please?, she asked her parents. “ I must have it, I don’t think I could live without it.”
“No”, her parents told her. “The toy is a trivial little thing that just enabled the price of this package to be raised beyond what it is really worth. It’s not in the budget. We can’t do it.”
But you don’t understand, she thought. She knew that they would not just be buying fries, McNuggets, and a dinosaur stamp, they would be buying happiness. She was convinced that she had a little McVacuum at the core of her soul. “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in a Happy Meal”.
So she explained, “I want that happy meal more than I’ve ever wanted anything before. And if I get it, I’ll never ask for anything again – ever. No more complaining. No more demanding. If you get me that happy meal, I’ll be content for the rest of my life.
This seemed like a pretty good deal to her parents, so they bought it.
And it worked.
She grew up to be a contented, grateful, joyful woman. She lived with serenity and grace. Her life in many ways was hard: the man she married turned out to be a loser, and he abandoned her with 3 small children and no money. The kids too were a disappointment: they dropped out of school, bludged off her meager resources, and eventually left without a trace. When she was an old woman, Social Security dried up, and she had to live from hand to mouth. But she never complained – she had gotten the happy meal; she would think of it often: I remember that happy meal, she’d say to herself, What great joy I found there. Just as she had predicted, it brought her lasting satisfaction. She was grateful the rest of her life.
Does life ever work that way. You would think after a while that kids would catch on, that they would say, “You know, a happy meal never brings lasting happiness; I’m not going to sucked in this time.” But it doesn’t happen. When the excitement wears off, they need a new fix, another happy meal. They keep buying them, and they keep not working. In fact, the only one that Happy Meals bring happiness to is McDonalds. Ever wonder why Ronald McDonald wears that grin all the time – billions and billions of Happy Meals.
Of course, only children could be so naïve, only a child could be so foolish to believe that a change in circumstances could bring lasting contentment, right? Or maybe not, maybe when you get older, you don’t necessarily get smarter; maybe your Happy Meals just get more complicated and expensive.
It turns out, that little girl was very well read, she knew her Augustine:, “You have made us for yourself; and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee.” The Lord made the same point this way, through the prophet Isaiah,
Is. 55:1 Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.
• the fact is, we are thirsty hungry people – not just physically, although that is true for more millions than the media ever care to tell us about. No, we have a hunger and thirst of the soul; we cry out for connection and satisfaction and significance; or another way to say the same thing is to say that we were made to find our life and meaning and safety in the love and power and purposes of another. We were made for the service of another; we were made for God. This is why bringing his people out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, is only half of God’s grace. The rescue from, the freedom from, side of the question is only half the grace that God has for us; the other half is the rescue to, the freedom for, the freedom to live for God, Deut 6
Deut. 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6 Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8 Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, 9 and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
this is the so-called Shema, the first thing an Israelite said to her or himself in the morning, and that last thing at night, a twice daily repeated ritual that reinforced what was the bedrock of rock. And notice the 3 elements of the bedrock …
The Lord is our God, not anyone or anything else; no person, no community, no cause, no principle or philosophy, no opportunity for advancement or improvement of circumstances will attract the same loyalty, the same decision creating power in my life.
And therefore second, all that I am and have will be under the determination of this one, the Lord, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. The love of my heart and soul and might – every resource, every strength, every capacity is for Him. Nothing is to be withheld, nothing is to be quarrantined and kept safe in my own hands; it’s all for him
And third, precisely because this means living for what is not seen rather than what is seen, living for the God who cannot be represented as an idol in a world brim full of optional idols, having this creed as the bedrock of your life means taking the necessary steps in your life to make apparent what is invisible, and in particular, to make sure the next generation does not have only a watered down, diluted form of this devotion. Recite the word of this God to your children, talk about it when you are home or away with them, make it the obvious dominating and defining reality of your life.
• do you hear what Moses is saying: God must have the best that Israel has received; he is not a God to be approached with one’s leftovers; he comes first. Jesus says the same thing to us – love the Lord your God with all you heart and mind and strength. And this is an enormous challenge in our secularized, cynical culture:
how do love God with all our hearts when we are emotionally spent, caught up in our anxiety driven society, bouncing from global financial crisis to swine flu crisis, and whatever the next crisis will be, with the solution to pretty much each one, did you notice, to purchase more now, which throws you into personal cash flow and need to get a pay-rise at work crisis, and in the midst of all the crises, we have nothing left to bring to God.
how do we love God with our minds when we buy into the culture of dumbing down, where analysis is conducted one sound bite at a time. The danger is that we let faith become just another mindless self-preoccupied enterprise, with the intellectual rigor of our current political debate; we long for easy answers and quick solutions, dare I say shorter and shorter and more entertaining sermons and devotions, and it all ends up being at the level of bumper sticker faith
how do we love God with our strength when we dwell in a self indulgent, over spent, maxed out, mortgaged to the absolute limit society, where the thought of generosity or philanthropy or dollars or time for church makes little sense, because you can barely keep your head above water in the first place.
the question really is how you order your life so that this is possible for you? Deuteronomy represents one such ordering, in a nation which is God’s. This is a creed which will creep into every corner and crevice of life – in fact, let’s do a little exercise, turn forward in Deut, say between chs 12-25, and close your eyes, and drop your finger on the page, and then read the verse, and I’ll ask a few people to read out loud what they got.
• get people to read out etc.
From time to time, hear of an apartment where a hand basin or shower drain gets blocked, and the water spills over, and flows into every corner and crevice of the unit. That’s a bit like this, this whole hearted, whole minded, whole strengthed love of God will overflow into every crevice and corner of your life, from the biggest questions of character to the smallest decisions of your diary, nothing is unaffected, all share the same colour, the colour of the love of God.
Of course, we are not there, the promised land 3500 years ago, God’s people a nation; we need to translate this into a new covenant key, and we will need each other to show the way. For example
someone recently said that crucial to his life in God was service, that what actually kept him vital in his love for God was sacrificial, time consuming service of others.
a friend of mine who changes jobs not infrequently makes sure that he gives the first pay packet, whatever it is, to those in need, just a way of having the kind of discipline that helps him enact a love for God with his strength.
• and of course there are dozens of other ways, concrete enactments of the love of God. We have tried to give it shape at CCIW by saying that he kind of people we long to be are those who know and love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ, his church and his world, in the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father. Every power – our convictions, our character and our conduct – in every context – toward God, towards his people and towards the world that he loves – the grace of God seeping into every corner of our lives and shaping every aspect of our lives.
• this is the vision of Deuteronomy, our lives for his glory. But Deuteronomy is also aware that there are things that would drive us or distract us from this path; in particular, there are 2 great realms of life which lead us into false love of false gods – when things go well, or when things go badly.
when things go well.
• the first fertile ground for false love is when things go well, 6.10:
Deut. 6:10 When the LORD your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you — a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, 11 houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant — and when you have eaten your fill, 12 take care that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13 The LORD your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear. 14 Do not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who are all around you, 15 because the LORD your God, who is present with you, is a jealous God. The anger of the LORD your God would be kindled against you and he would destroy you from the face of the earth.
• is this a diagnosis of Australian culture or what? We have eaten our fill, we have fine houses and filled with all manner of things, our vineyards and our olive groves, our electrical gadgets and our clothes racks, have multiplied, or silver and gold, our bank balances and share portfolios have multiplied, and all that we have has multiplied, and we have forgotten the Lord our God, and we worship ourselves, making our offerings to comfort and happiness on a daily basis.
• the primary form that remembering the Lord takes is thankfulness. Thankfulness is one of the great marks of a truly worshipful person. But we need to do better than mouthing the words.
• Parents have a question that they ask their children. All parents do it, especially after someone has given their kid a gift or a favour: “What do you say?” What do you say to your Aunt Agnes for her spinach, brussel sprout and vegemite casserole. Now, how’s a kid supposed to respond – imagine an honest response – “Aunt Agnes, what in the name of heaven were you thinking. Aunt Agnes, you should not be allowed to prepare meals. – someone should put you away”.
Instead, what do you say – thank you
• just as surprising would be a genuine emotion – “Aunt Agnes, I have a sense of awe and wonder at what I have just experienced. I am but a child. Without an adult providing for me as you have done, I would die. You’ve presented this meal freely, as an act of love and service for me. Aunt Agnes, you are a humanitarian, and in the name of children everywhere, I salute you.” – Instead thank you.
the words are better than nothing, but there is so much more. The psalmist wrote, “Let me live that I may praise you”. That’s the worshipful life, a life not of forgetfulness but of thankfulness.
when things go badly.
• but the other fertile ground for false love is when things go badly:
Deut. 6:16 Do not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. 17 You must diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his decrees, and his statutes that he has commanded you. 18 Do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may go in and occupy the good land that the LORD swore to your ancestors to give you, 19 thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the LORD has promised.
at massah, Israel was thirsty, she was tested and failed the test of character and loyalty, and accused the Lord of bringing her out of Egypt just so she could die in the desert. And just as when things go well we find forgetting easy, so when things go badly, we find accusation easy, and the desparate clutching to any other option that we think will fix up the mess.
• you know you are in danger of this form of lovelessness, what you might call disappointment idolatry, when your life is characterized by a habit of complaint:
when you find yourself bored or dissatisfied in your work. You expect it not only to pay the bills, but to provide you with a sense of identity and purpose, and it is crushed under the weight of your expectations
you are disappointed in your relationships. Your friends or spouse or children don’t meet all you emotional or intimacy needs, and you find yourself growing resentful.
Rather than losing yourself in the moment, you find you get preoccupied in whether or not you are truly happy.
You try to escape from your disappointment. You seek relief or distraction through watching massive hours of TV, shopping or alcohol.
You lose generosity of spirit. Your initial response to events tends to be cynical or even hostile.
You grow resentful or envious of those whose circumstances seem more pleasant than your own.
work, relationships, achievements, possession – these are be wonderful gifts, but they make miserable gods, and lousy medicine for a wounded soul. They are not enough to build a life on. They cannot nurture the human spirit. The only way of life that will satisfy is one ordered in every respect to the Lord our God – it is the Lord our God we shall fear, him we shall serve; and by his name alone shall we swear.
DON’t pray
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