All Your Strength

Welcome to Canvas Church. We love you and we're grateful for you. We are in a five-month series that we are simply calling God First, where we are searching the scriptures to discover what it means to truly put God first in every area of our life, understanding and settling now that we know there is no power in the partially surrendered life. It is only when we fully commit to what Jesus instructed us to do in Matthew chapter six, when he said, seek first, seek first, seek first the kingdom of God, and then all these other things will be added unto you. He never promised provision from the second position. He only said that when we would put him first in our lives, then and only then would we experience what he calls the abundant life. And this principle of God being the priority of our lives is from cover to cover in the Bible. And over these past few weeks, we have been launching from this particular passage in Luke chapter 10 and looking at these four specific ways to love God. Here's what it says. Bible says in Luke 10, and behold, a lawyer stood up to put him, that is Jesus, to the test, saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And he said to him, well, what's written in the law? How do you read it? You're a good Jewish lawyer. You know the Torah. What did the Spirit of God tell Moses? And he answered, well, what it says is you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, love him with all of your soul, love him with all of your strength, and with all of your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus said, that's it. You've got it correctly. Do this, and you shall live. And I've shared with you that this exchange is actually recorded in multiple gospels, but it takes on a different level of importance when you read it in Matthew's gospel, because when Jesus records this or recounts this, he then calls it the first and the greatest commandment. Now, that's a big deal. Jesus calling it the first and the greatest commandment means that as followers of Christ, we should pay very close attention to it. It is weighty, it is pregnant with purpose, it is deeply significant. But what does it mean? What does it actually look like to love God with all of your heart? What's it look like to love him with all of your soul

and with all of your strength and with all of your mind? Well, that's what we've been unpacking for these few weeks, what each one of those looks like. And in the first week, we talked about what it means to love him with all of your heart, and we learned it means to love him passionately. He can't just be in your life. He has to be first in our life. And we were in Revelation chapter two, where Jesus addresses this church at Ephesus, and he says, you do so many things well. You are such a great church, and you're so healthy, but there's this one thing that I've noticed about you. You've lost your first love. They didn't lose their love. They love the Lord, they were serving the Lord. They were working for the Lord, they were honoring the Lord, but they had lost their first love. And we talked about how it's a drift. It's just a slide. It happens so gradually over time that we lose our first love. And so to love him with all of our heart means to love him passionately. Second week, what it means to love him with all of our soul. We talked about what it means to know him personally, and we prayed the prayer of Moses in Exodus 33 and 34. God, we don't wanna just see your acts. We clearly see what you do. We know that you are sovereign, that you're powerful,

that you are God over all. But God, we wanna know you intimately. We don't wanna just see what you do. We actually wanna know your ways. We wanna know who you are intimately and personally. And today, I wanna talk about what it means to love God with all of your strength. What does that mean? Well, to just summarize it, it means to love God intentionally, to love him intentionally, to be intentional with our lover. Let me say it this way. It means to not just talk about loving God, but to demonstrate our love for God through our service to him and to others. Because deep down, you really know this is true. Love isn't just talk. It's not just saying, I love you. True love does. True love has legs. True love acts. It moves, it's mobile, and it's alive. Love, real love, doesn't just sit on the sidelines. It engages, it gets involved, and it serves. Now, I don't have to tell you this, that we live in a world, and actually, Jesus told us there were three enemies that would constantly fight against the work of God in our lives, and they do. He called them the world, the flesh, and the devil. And the world, the flesh, and the devil

have taught us very well to ask a question or to build our lives around a very central question that's at the front of our minds, what's in it for me? We all ask it, we all ask it. We ask it because of our flesh. We ask it because the world's taught us to. We ask it because the devil baits us to. What's in it for me? In other words, what can I get out of this? How does this benefit me personally. And it's precisely this attitude that makes the life of Christ so incredibly transformational because Jesus was so counter-cultural. He was so counter-cultural. The life of Christ and the word of God to his people challenges this mentality. Everywhere in the Bible, you see it challenging this mentality. It is warring against the devil, the flesh, and the enemy of the world. And so Jesus was constantly stretching us to break away from this prevailing attitude that seeks to only fulfill myself. If you read the Gospels, he was constantly saying things that made people double-take. He would make people go, wait, what did he say? Did he really mean that?

He was saying things like, like, lose it and you'll find it. It was an upside-down philosophy. He taught an upside-down kingdom that went against the world, the flesh, and the devil. He would say things like, the greatest blessing that you will ever know is not when you receive, it's when you give. And people said, what? What does that actually mean? Jesus would say, if you really wanna be first, go last. And people would go, what? What is he talking about? And Jesus would say, if you really desire to be great, if you wanna be elevated, if you wanna be the great, if you wanna be the top, then serve everyone else and prefer everyone else above yourself. I was actually in Barnes & Noble's a while back and I literally counted it. I saw three whole sections of shelves that were basically dedicated to this one thing, how to get more out of life, how to get more out of life. Well, if Jesus were standing there, he would tell you that the way to get the most out of life is to put more into it for God and for others. And he didn't just walk around telling people how to do it, he lived it, he demonstrated it every day and in every way. In fact, no one exemplified this way of life or the heart of service more than Christ himself. And other than the cross itself,

I don't know that there's anywhere that this is more on display than where we're going to camp out today in John chapter 13, because here's what the Bible says about it. John 13, verse one, before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his father. He is moments away from the Garden of Gethsemane where he's praying, he's gonna be arrested and he's gonna be put on trial and he's gonna be crucified in just days. And he knew that this was coming. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth and he loved them even to the very end. And it was time for supper, the last supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. And Jesus knew that the father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God. He was eventually returning to God. Watch what he did. So he got up from the table, he took off his robe, exposed himself, it was vulnerable. He wrapped a towel around his waist and he poured water into a basin. And then he began to wash the disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that he had around them. And after washing their feet, he put his robe again and he sat down and he asked, do you understand what I just did?

Do you understand the significance of what just happened? You call me teacher and Lord, and you're right. It's what I am. And since I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you should wash each other's feet as well. I have given you an example to follow. Do unto others as I have done to you. What Jesus is talking here about, of course, not literally washing people's feet. That's just what was available and present to him at the moment to illustrate the point he wanted to make to his disciples. He is vividly demonstrating that greatness in the kingdom of God, what it looks like. The mark of greatness and leadership in the kingdom of God is not gifting. It's not position. It's not title. It's not prestige. It's not talent. It's not power. It's not importance. Greatness in the kingdom of God is marked by a deep commitment and willingness to serve others and to go last. It's interesting to me that Jesus, if you look at his life, did not raise Lazarus from the dead and then stand back and go, you wanna see what real power looks like in the kingdom of God?

Look at that. It's interesting he didn't walk on water and then turn around to the disciples and say, you wanna be great in the kingdom of God? Did you see what I just did? Just do that. It's interesting he didn't feed 5,000 with this little lunch and then say, do you really want influence in the kingdom of God? Look at the miraculous power that I just exhibited and I'm gonna give you power to do the same thing. Just do that. That's not what Jesus considered to be the apex of the kingdom of God. What he called. Greatness, what he called importance, what he called power was he uncovered himself. It's mind boggling to me. He got vulnerable. He crawled around on this nasty floor and he washed every one of their nasty feet and then said, you wanna be great? You want life to matter? You really wanna make a difference with your life in this world? Then love me with all of your strength and do what I have done to you. If you wanna love me with all of your strength, don't just talk about it. Demonstrate it through your service

and your love for others. He defined greatness by you and my, our willingness and heart to serve others. Now, let me do this. I wanna give you a little bit of backdrop because it's important and appropriate to the text. Let me tell you two things here about the text and then I wanna show you three things from the text that Jesus did that serves as an example for you and I to live here today. There were two things that you need to know about what makes this so important. The first thing is you gotta know that pride had penetrated the disciples. Pride had penetrated his team. The backstory is is that in the moments, if you read back leading up to this, the disciples had been sitting at the table before Jesus shows up arguing over who the greatest among them was. There was jealousy and pride and egos had gotten out of control and they began to see each other as competitors and they were saying things like, well, Jesus spends more time with me than he does you. Clearly, he likes me better than he likes you. I can preach better than you. I can pray better than you. I can give an altar call better than you and they were comparing each other's gifts

and talents, it was ugly. They were shifting and jockeying for position and comparing their gifts and talents. It was full of flesh and fueled by selfish pride until finally, they're just arguing and mad at each other and Jesus walks into the room immediately after this argument. Have you ever walked into a room and you could cut the tension with a knife? Like you walked into a room and you clearly, you didn't know it, but a husband and wife had been fighting and they're just mad and angry and not talking or maybe there was an exchange between a parent and a child and there's just this tension in the room. You can feel it, nobody has to tell you. You can just sense that something just happened. Well, Jesus was Jesus so he knew exactly what had happened. He heard the conversation even though he wasn't in the room. He knew what they were talking about and he knew what they were trying to be about. This selfish, fueled, prideful, ugly exchange. Jesus walks into it and he knows what's going on among them. Now, you gotta understand that in the corner of this room, there was a basin, a towel and a jar of water that had been sitting there the entire time. This is a very common and permanent fixture in every home back then. You must remember, there weren't sidewalks or pavements in old Palestine so you would wash your feet

from the dust and dirt before relaxing inside and generally, whoever the host of the house was would provide this and offer to assist their guests to be refreshed. The disciples knew it was there, saw it, walked right by it and didn't bother none of them to grab it. They knew it, they saw it but they were so jealous and bitter and prideful towards one another that no one was about to offer that type of assistance. Why? They were waiting on a lesser disciple to serve them. They were waiting on a disciple they considered to be lower than them, beneath them, to get the basin and to wash their feet because they felt they were higher on the power food chain than the other and none of them were about to be the lesser one. They were waiting to be served. Now, remember this, they were arguing only among themselves who the greatest disciple was but when Jesus was in the room, there was not a question among them who the greatest among them was. It was clearly, undisputably Jesus. So when he walks in the room, he shows them what greatness looks like and I find it amazing. He didn't announce to the groom, I'm about to wash your feet.

He didn't make some grand speech about servant leadership and what it looks like. He didn't even reprimand them for their selfishness and their pride. See, leaders never announce what they're gonna do, they're just about it. They don't talk about it, they be about it and Jesus just gets up from the table, he takes off his robe and I imagine them looking at each other going, what's he doing? And he goes over and he picks up this basin of water and the towel and they go, is he about to do what I think he's about to do? He shouldn't be doing this. I bet you could cut the conviction in that room with a knife. Because as soon as he picks up the basin, they all immediately knew they should have been the one that were washing his feet. But here he is, the creator of the universe, the king of kings, the lord of lords, about to wash his creation's feet. It's mind-boggling. And they sat there. One gospel records that as he's washing Peter's feet, he's weeping. He's broken. Because he sees that he should be the one who is washing Jesus' feet. But Jesus is washing his feet. So pride had penetrated his team. You've got to be careful about pride. But let me tell you the second thing you need to know about the text. You get from the text that last words are always the most important words. Last words are always meaningful.

They're pregnant with purpose. When I pastored in Lake City with my brother, there was a gentleman in our church 20 years ago who worked with his dad for many years. They owned an electrical business. And his dad had developed lung cancer. And he and his brother were going to be assuming the business, this gentleman in our church. The father was hardworking. I knew him personally. He was a good man. He was an honest man. But because of his background and because of who he was, it's a long story, but he had never been openly affectionate with his sons. He had never told them he was proud of them. He never really told them that he loved them. He believed in them. And he was a good man. He just didn't know how to express it to his sons. And I went and visited him in the hospital. He had about three months to live. And he really didn't make the three months. But as we prayed together, he wanted to know that he was right with God. And it was just he and I. And I'll never forget him saying the regret that he had and how awkwardly he had confessed to me. He said, I love Mike and Chad. And they're good boys. And they're hard workers. And they're honest men. And I'm so proud of them. I love them so much. And I've just never been able to tell them.

And I know that they've noticed it, but I don't know how to express that. And I said, Larry, God has given you a tremendous gift. I know cancer doesn't feel like a gift. And I know the end of your life, it doesn't feel like a gift. But, Larry, some people get up in the morning and leave for work and just never come home. And they never get to say what needs to be said. And they never get to express what needs to be expressed. God has given you this beautiful gift of time. And they're out in the hall. And you said it to me. Just say to them what you just said to me. And I walked out. And I invited Mike and Chad in the room. And I cracked the door. I just wanted to hear. And I heard one of the most powerful moments in my entire ministry. I heard a father, through tears, weeping, telling his sons that he was proud of them. That he loved them. That they were good boys. They were going to do good. That they needed to be honest in business. And I heard them weep and wail and pray together and cry together. It was one of the most beautiful moments. Listen, last words matter. I had an opportunity to spend an alone time with my mother two weeks before she passed in the hospital. My brothers weren't there. My dad wasn't there. It was just me and my mom. And I will never forget. I will go to my grave remembering what we said to each other.

Listen, when you got last words, you don't waste them on petty things. You don't say insignificant things. You say things that are pregnant with purpose that need to be said between you and the people that you love. Knowing that, you have to understand that these are some of the last words that Jesus was ever going to say. So they have to be received the way they were given. Pregnant with purpose. Meaningful. So when he talks about serving others. And he talks about living this service to others. And he says this is what the kingdom is going to be about. It has to have that pregnant meaning to us as well. In other words, Jesus was saying this isn't something you ought to do. Or something that would be really neat if you would do. This issue of serving others is one of the most pivotal and vital expressions of what it means to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. But now I want to show you the three things that Jesus did that serve as an example for us to follow. Number one, go back to the text. He got up from the table. What I mean by that is he got up. He stood up. He was willing to get involved. Listen, there is a time to sit at the table and be served. There is. But please hear me. There is a time that every one of us that name the name of Christ. That declare we are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a time that you must get up from the table from being served. And serve others. We must be careful that we do not fall into the routine of always sitting and listening to great sermons. And learning God's word. But then never get involved and take action to live out his love in the lives of others.

The word feeds our soul, but it doesn't feed our soul just so that we can merely enjoy its flavor. The word feeds our soul to give us the fuel and the strength that we need to serve others and to flesh out the kingdom of God. It's not about just sitting here and judging how good I preached today, or getting in and say, Pat, that was a five today at best, you know what I'm saying? Sitting around the restaurant and say, man, you know, I've heard better. I mean, you know, I've heard that sermon, but I've heard it better, but you know. You gotta let go of all of that. You gotta come and come with an open and receptive spirit to what the Holy Spirit wants to say to you. And God is calling all of us to get involved, to get up from the table and to serve. You know, I read something years ago, maybe you've heard this, I don't know. I read it, I'll never forget it. When Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympic swimmer of all time, when he was at the peak of his Olympic career, he had a team of doctors and coaches that had calculated how much energy he needed to perform at his optimum level, and they had assessed that he needed 12,000 calories a day. And ESPN documented what his breakfast

on training days alone included. His breakfast included three fried egg sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomato, fried onions, mayonnaise, a five egg omelet, a large bowl of grits, maize porridge, three slices of French toast with powdered sugar, three chocolate chip pancakes. Every morning when he trained, and still my man had 2% body fat. Do you know why he had 2% body fat? Because he wasn't eating because he enjoyed it, he was giving his body what it needed to serve the purpose and demands that he was placing on it. Okay, track with me now. Listen, obesity occurs whenever we take in and collect more calories than we're working off, and we must be careful that we don't fall victim to spiritual obesity. Spiritual obesity, we eat good word, eat good word, eat good word, get spiritual bread, take in spiritual bread, never serve anybody, never serve anyone else, always being served, never get involved in the church, never get involved in the kingdom of God, and we end up spiritually obese. This is not the will of God for our lives. God has called us to be fed with his word so that we can burn off those calories by serving others. If you come to Canvas, you're gonna see on the back of every chair, join the mission. We want you not just to come to a great church,

we want you to get involved in the life of the church. We don't want you to just sit and listen to great sermons. It is the will of God for you to get involved so that you can serve God's service kingdom and actually make it an even better church. And if you're here and you're not involved in serving at Canvas, this is one of the quickest and easiest ways that you can get up from the table and start serving, just text serve to 94033. Listen, this is not a push because we need more volunteers. We always need volunteers, and we've got hundreds and hundreds of volunteers. This is about discipleship. This is about saying, we're in a series, God first, God, are you first in every area of my life? Are you first in my heart? Are you first in my hands? Are you first in my service? Are you being served? See, think about the people, if you're here and you're not serving, think about how many people have already served you this morning. Somebody helped you park your car. Somebody greeted you at the door. Somebody poured you a cup of coffee. Somebody gave you some information at the welcome desk. Somebody's checked in your kids, and somebody's teaching your children right now about Jesus on their level

so that they love to come to church. Somebody's done that. But I want you to ask yourself a question. I want you to ask yourself a question. If everybody gave like me and served like me, would we even have a church? If everybody gave like me, if everybody served like me, would we even have a church? I'm not trying to guilt you, man. That's not what I do. But I wanna pastor you effectively and faithfully. I wanna be faithful to you. And this is a discipleship issue. It is the will of God that we not just sit at the table and always be served, but that there is a moment we must get up from the table and serve someone else. Jesus modeled this for us. He got up from the table, the creator of the universe, and he served the disciples. Number two, he got down to their knee. He didn't just get up from the table. He got down to their knee. He didn't mind getting on the floor and doing whatever was necessary. This is the picture of humility. Again, I know I'm repeating myself, but he's the sovereign God of the universe.

I just can't get my mind around it. He's not aching. He's thinking. Okay, he's not a Lord. He's the Lord of all Lords, and he's washing his creation's feet. And have you ever thought about this? He didn't skip anybody, and I would have wanted to. There were some dudes at the table that were not gonna be the best disciples. There was a dude at the table named Judas who would betray him. He washed his feet. There was a dude at the table named Peter who was about to deny him, not once, not twice, but three times, and he washed his feet anyway. There was a dude at the table named Thomas that would doubt he even rose from the dead, and he still washed all of the disciples' feet. Wow. He also knew that if he would just get down and serve them and love them through it, that some of those men would go on to be redeemed and restored and go on to do great things for the cause of Christ. And listen, maybe you're here today, and you failed God or your family, your friends and yourself, and you think everybody's given up on you. You need to see that,

because God knows everything that you said, saw everything that you did, and he still washed your feet on the cross. He's still forgiving you. He still loves you. He still wants you to come home. He still made a way. You cannot out-sin the blood of Jesus or the grace of God. He invites you to come home just like you are and be whole. We must be willing to humble ourselves as he has served us. And then serve others. Number three, after he did this, he sent them out to the world. He washes their feet and he gets up and he goes, get it? Everybody in the room get it? And they're still processing, man, what just happened? And Jesus said, do you get what I've done here? Do you now see what we're gonna always be about? This thing called the kingdom of God is not gonna be marked by the world serving us. We're gonna go into the world and we're gonna serve others and we're gonna love others. Jesus was saying, the world's mantra is what's in it for me. That's the world. We're not gonna be about that. We're not gonna be like that. We're gonna be so different that they're gonna recognize that we are the salt of the earth. We're gonna be so different in our approach

to the way we live that they're gonna recognize we're gonna be the light of the world. We are not gonna be like everyone else. We are gonna be so distinct and different and countercultural that we are gonna be like a city that is set on a hill that cannot be hid. They are going to recognize we are different. And that recognition will not be for your glory. It will be because they will recognize there is a God in you that is producing something that is not of this world. And the glory will not go to us. The glory will go to God. It was prophetic, man. He was saying from the cross forward, the church will always be a place of love, a place of acceptance, man, a place of service. Our movement will be marked by serving, not by being served, not by big buildings and big lights and big crowds. I'd get it, thank God. Revival's happening. All of that has its place. But that's not what the church is gonna be about, man. It's gonna be a place where anybody anywhere knows they're accepted and loved and that the blood of Jesus and the grace of God is for everyone. We're not gonna run from messy people or messy things or messy situations.

What's gonna mark the church differently is we're gonna run to them. We're gonna love people where they are. We're gonna believe that God can change and transform them just like he did us. We don't get intimidated by people's sins and issues, man. We don't judge or compare or throw rocks because people don't live the way we think they should or whether we think it's right or wrong. No, man, that's not a, we just get up from the table. We get down to their needs. And we serve them with love and we watch God transform their lives from the inside out. He rewrites stories, man. He changes lives. He saves and delivers and transforms. We don't change anyone. We're it. We serve everyone. And through that love and service, God does his work in them. Because here's the truth. Our call is not to do something great for God. When I was in my 20s and freshly saved and in ministry, man, I was so zealous for the Lord, I just thought I'm gonna make my heavenly father proud. I'm gonna do something big for God. My heart was pure, but I didn't understand that wasn't the call. The call was not for me to do something great for God

because I can do nothing apart from him. My calling is simply to consecrate ourselves to him every day so that he can do something great through us. It's to say, less of me, more of you. I'm not gonna ask what's in it for me anymore. I'm gonna ask Lord. What do you? Require and desire for my life And then I'm gonna do that My life is not my own Galatians said we are bought with a price. We are a purchased possession. He bought us with his own blood and I'm not gonna live my life anymore Self-centered self-absorbed or selfish I'm going to ask the Lord Lord. What is it that you would have me to do? To serve you and to serve others And he'll speak to you I believe the Holy Spirit speaking to people right now That you've been served and been served and been served, but now it's time for you to get up from the table Join the mission actually be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ and Serve someone else and serve others And what you're gonna discover is He was right It's actually true That the greatest joy you'll ever know in life is when you know that you're a part of helping someone else get to Jesus and Experience Jesus the way that you have It's the most fulfilling and rewarding thing I've ever experienced in my life And I want you to know it too. And here's the deal. So if you're here and you're saved you call campus home You're not serving Text it get involved today Watch what God will do through your life Don't just attend a great church. Come on get involved and help work to make it an even greater Church

But if you're here and you haven't even surrendered your life to Christ Come home Know his love Bring it just you don't have to change yourself. You don't have to get it all together and then come home That's like saying I'm only go to the I'm only gonna go to the hospital when I'm finally well Well, I'm only gonna go to the restaurant when I'm finally full doesn't make any sense You go to the hospital because you're sick You go to the restaurant because you're hungry And you come to the cross because you know, you're broken and you can't fix yourself And you can't save yourself and you can't somehow fix it by yourself and on your own But he said coming to me all you that labor in her heavy laden I'll save you heal you forgive you give you rest All you have to do is bring it to him and trust him can I pray with you father I thank you