Well known journalist and author Lee Stroble was assigned to report on the struggles of on poverty within a inner city family during the weeks leading up to Christmas. Lee himself was a devout atheist at that time. As he began to interview and visit the Delgados family, he found they had been burned out of their roach-infested tenement and were now living in a tiny, two-room apartment on the West Side. Lee stated, “As I walked in, I couldn't believe how empty it was. There was no furniture, no rugs, nothing on the walls—only a small kitchen table and one handful of rice. That's it. They were virtually devoid of possessions.”
The two teenage girls only owned one short sleeve dress and one gray sweater between them. Walking to school in extreme conditions, it would be easy to say they suffered while not having the need. And then when speaking to the mother, Perfecta, even during their poverty circumstances, she still confidently talked about her faith in Christ! Even through all the turmoils of life and circumstances, she knew God had not abandoned them. Lee noted that inspite of their despair, they held hope and peace that he could not fully understand.
In the weeks to follow the publishing of his article with all the intrusive details of the Delgados family, Lee moved onto more high profile assignments, while never forgetting the Delgados family. Lee stated, “I continued to wrestle with the irony of the situation. Here was a family that had nothing but faith, and yet seemed happy, while I had everything I needed materially, but lacked faith—and inside I felt as empty and barren as their apartment."
So one day, weeks later, Lee decided to pay the family a visit, only to find something he never expected. This atheist discovered during the Christmas season that his article being in the Chicago Tribune, one of the most read papers in America, help give the Delgados family a new life! Lee found new furniture, clothes and food which he called “A new found wealth,” in this small apartment. You see, many people came to aid this family out of love which is something Lee never expected, all because of the article this devout atheist wrote.
Then, to cap it all off, Lee found Perfecta giving away some of their new found wealth, and when Lee asked her why, she stated this. "Our neighbors are still in need. We cannot have plenty while they have nothing. This is what Jesus would want us to do." SO, the Delgados family had peace despite poverty, while Lee had anxiety despite plenty; they knew the joy of generosity, while Lee only knew the loneliness of ambition; they looked heavenward for hope, while Lee only looked out for himself; they experienced the wonder of the spiritual, while Lee was shackled to the shallowness of the material—and something made him long for what they had. Or, more accurately, for the One they knew, which was in the Risen Lord, Jesus the Christ!
IF I was to ask you this morning this question. What does God want from you? What does he expect? What would be your answer? And if you truly think about it, the answer to that question would steer your life into how you live! The answer to that question would change the way you would react to how other people live their lives! Whether justly or unjustly. Honorably or unhonorably, and so on.
In the Gospel of Mark, we find an account where a known scribe came up and heard Jesus speaking parables to the people and while the answer was already known in scripture, just like this scribe, the people forgot and disregarded the answer. “What commandment is the foremost of all?” What is the greatest commandment! Now, before continuing, I want you to understand that Jesus did not bring to us, even today, a new set of laws, rules and regulations. God already presented to the people who He is by way of His written word and the lives of His followers. Let us go back to the book of Deuteronomy chapter 6. The scribes, pharaisees and all Jew’s know these five books of moses, Pentateuch, which was a requirement in the Jewish faith. “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Without even thinking too much about it, is there any misinterpretation as to what God is proclaiming is the great commandment? Everything and in every circumstance, we are to Love God, serve God and worship God period. When coming to church, where its outdoors or in a physical building like this today, if we come for any other reason than to worship and praise the living God, we are coming for the wrong reason! That should always be paramount to everything we do! But why? Why love God with such emphasis? Firstly it’s something God desires and wishes from His creation. Scripture tells us if mankind will not worship and praise me, then the rocks and trees will! What does that tell you? It means the more we love something, the more we become like it! An example would be like if you have a friend that loves tennis. The tennis player wears proper tennis shoes and clothing attire. He reads tennis magazines. He talks tennis talk. He has a racket and his hair would even probably look like a tennis ball. Then you may like surfing. Would you not read surfing magazines, own a surf board, smell like salt and seaweed. Everything about you would reek of what you are, would it? How is this any different in loving, serving and following the living God of all creation? But isn't it true whatever you love, you start moving that way? Some of US love food. Case closed on that one.
That's why the Bible says the greatest commandment of all is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. That is the greatest commandment of all. Why? Because the power to change is given in relationship, and what you love you become like. Jesus did not give a new command, but reemphasized it and its forgotten importance in what God desires.
Now I am not declaring that loving God with every ounce of our being is easy or simple. What I am saying this morning is what God desires from us is not something we can do on our own! Just like the tennis player and surfer, we learn to do these things and from that process is where we want and desire from God on how to be more of Him in everything we do.
In continuing in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus goes onto another potentially forgotten or lost ridic which for some is more difficult than the first. Love your neighbor as yourself! Wow! Now we have another part that plays a more personal role in some people. Its one thing to worship, serve and praise the living God of all creation, but to absolutely love someone who you hate, despise and even get sick to your stomach when just being in their presence? This is why for some this is more complicated than the first! Now guess what? Jesus did not give us this new commandment! It was already given to us centuries before in God’s direct verbiage. In the book of Leviticus, chapter 19 God tells us “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Again, where is there misinterpretation?
In closing friends, I want to leave you with this. Rev. Kevin Miller said it this way. Let's make this personal. What is God saying to you? What is he asking of you?
For some of you, your pulse is pounding right now. You know exactly what God has been asking of you, and you don't know if you can say "yes." Tell him, "Yes." Love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Give him everything you've got, because when you say "yes" to God, you grow in love for him, and you grow in love for neighbor.
If you drive down Roosevelt Road, you'll go right past Marianjoy, a 120-bed rehabilitation hospital where doctors and nurses take care of the weakest and neediest patients in healthcare.
They provide rehabilitation for people with spinal and brain injuries, which means everyday these caregivers do some of the most frustrating, long-term work you can have. Why do they do that? Why did this hospital start? Who was behind it?
I'll tell you where Marianjoy started. It started in the middle of Italy, in the year 1205. A 24-year-old man was riding his horse when he saw something in the distance that scared him to death: a man contagious with leprosy. His skin was half gone, his face was disfigured, and the smell was so bad that the rider on horseback wanted to hold his nose and turn his horse around. Instead, that man, named Francis, remembered what God had said to him in a prayer: "Francis, the things that used to make you shudder will bring you great sweetness and content." So Francis got off his horse, pulled some money out, and put a few coins in the leper's hands. Then he actually put his arms around the leper and kissed him on the cheek.
Francis said "yes" to God.
That created an explosion of love that is still blasting outward, and it's reached all the way here. Eight hundred years later, on Roosevelt Road, you find a Franciscan hospital, where people with convulsions, slurred speech, and numb hands and feet have someone to come in and feed them, change their clothes, and dump their bedpans.
Why is it that there's so much love for a neighbor in that place? It all started because one person said "yes" to God.
I would like to leave you with this opportunity this morning. Close your eyes. Open your heart. Now Listen! Listen to what God is saying to you right now!
God is asking you, do you love me? How much do you love me? Of all I have given you, what is holding you back from growing? Is it pride? Is it fear? Is it faith? What are you lacking?
Father in Heaven, I come before you today humbled by your love for me. When I consider the love you have for me— when I look at the love poured out on me in Christ at the cross— all I can do is fall before you. Speechless. Humbled. Amazed.
Forgive me for not loving you with my whole heart. Forgive me for not loving my neighbor as myself. Forgive me for not forgiving others as I’ve been forgiven. Forgive me for being impatient and unkind. Forgive me for exalting myself and seeking my own glory and fame. Forgive me for not serving and giving and sacrificing for others.
Forgive me for the idols of my heart, for those things I look to in the hopes that they will give me what only you can give. Forgive me for treasuring things like comfort and pleasure, affirmation and adoration, success and work, family and fortune. Forgive me for setting them on the throne of my heart to worship.
I pray the roots of love would burrow deep in my heart and bring forth life. Help me to love with greater love. Help me to reflect and image you as I love others. Help me to radiate the love that lives within me through your Spirit to those around me. Help me to remove the idols of my heart and replace them with greater love for you. Help me to live out the love you’ve shown me in Christ in my thoughts, words, and deeds.
Your word says that love never fails. I thank you that even though my love for you falters and even though I flounder in my love for others, your love for me in Christ will never fail. It will endure to the end. Nothing can separate me from you. Reshape my heart this day to love you and others. In the name of Jesus I pray, amen