Loving God Above All Else (Part 1)

When Jesus was asked which commandment was the greatest, He summed up the whole law in two: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22). This message starts a four-week series on what it means to love God above all else.

The starting point is that we love Him because He loved us first (1 John 4:19). Our love for God is a response to what we have already received.

The message also gives a simple way to read the Old Testament. Ask three questions of each passage: what it tells us about Israel’s history, what it shows about the character and purposes of God, and what pattern it sets for God’s people going forward. Using Deuteronomy 7, it shows a God who is sovereign, faithful, gracious, holy and just. He chose a small and stubborn people for one reason: “because the Lord loves you.”

From Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi and Hosea, we see that God’s love never changes. It is the love of a Father. It makes us His sons and daughters, and it corrects us because it is real. We also look at what we get to enjoy because He loved us first: being wanted, being precious in His sight, the security of an everlasting love, and closeness with God as Father.

The message ends with a challenge to return to the foundation that shaped this church: Scripture, prayer, and time in God’s presence. We don’t do these things to earn His love. We do them because He loved us first.