The absolute and the relative (Luke 10:27) 　　　 　　　 　　　 　　　 　　　Today I'd like to share God's grace under the title, "The absolute and the relative." When we live in this world, there is something that is absolutely necessary while others are relatively important. For example, we cannot live without air. Air is necessary for everyone. However, someone can survive the cold winter season with only thin clothes. Healthy people can overcome it without a thick fur coat. During our hectic social life, we sometimes tend to forget what is the most essential in our life. Just like this, there are absolute things that we have to keep, but there are relative things that we are not necessarily required to keep. 　　　 　　　 1. The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the fruit of the tree of life 　　　 First, in Genesis there is the absolute command from God concerning the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the fruit of the tree of life. Here God said to Adam and Eve that there is an absolute thing to keep. 　　　Genesis 2:9 says, " The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground?trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." 　　　God ordered them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when they ate from it they would certainly die. He assumed a firm attitude. "You will surely die!" Then the devil came and got rid of the word, 'surely' from it. "You will not die. If you eat it you will become like God. Do it now!" 　　　Genesis 3:5 says, “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 　　　Why did God test them to see whether they would or would not eat the fruit of knowledge of good and evil after he had made it? God has always tested his people. Since he has given us the free will, he wants to test us if we love him with our free will or not. If God had made us as an automatic machine which is manageable by himself, it could not be a human being. He has given us the free will to choose freedom. In this way he has tried us to know whether we love him absolutely or we make compromises and love God relatively. When God said, "You must not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. When you eat of it, you shall surely die", we would obey it absolutely if we love him that much. If not, we may eat it depending on the condition. In Genesis 3:6, when she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, God felt humiliated. God created Adam and Eve according to his image and furthermore gave them the privilege to conquer and rule over the land. Nonetheless, they disobeyed his absolute command and were deceived into eating the fruit by the devil. This was disgusting and insulting to God. "My word seems to be negligible to them. How could they ignore it if they think so much of me?" He was so insulted! It was the proof that God was not the absolute being for Adam. Adam’s love was not absolute but conditional. It hurt God’s pride that He was not the absolute object of love, but the relative object of love. What happens if we hurt God's feeling? If we disobey God's command and do the opposite, what does God do with his dignity? As we proclaim to live without him, it really hurts his feeling. When Adam and Even ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God felt humiliated, insulted and enraged. Therefore, they were forsaken and cursed accordingly. 2. People whom God loves 　　　Secondly, in the Bible we find those whom God loves. Among those people whom God truly loves belongs Abraham. He obeyed God's command absolutely. Without arguing pros and cons he followed it. His priority was God! He left his hometown at the age of 75 with his relatives behind and started his journey without knowing where he was going. God was delighted at his absolute obedience to leave his hometown without knowing where to go. It is unthinkable to leave one's native place at the age of 75. Rather it is time to return from a strange land. How could one dare to leave? 　　　Hebrews 11:8 says, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." 　　　He obeyed and went without knowing where he was going. God smiled in heaven because he was so happy with him. He knew that Abraham desperately obeyed him with absolute faith and love. That's why God tested Abraham, to boast about his faith before angels and the devil. When his only son who he fathered at the old age of 100 became a teenager, God asked him for a burnt offering. 　　　Hebrews 11:17 says, "By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son." 　　　Even though God gave his only son as a gift, he offered him without hesitance. Therefore, with this Abraham became our ancestor of faith! 　　　In the Bible there is another favorite of God. He received a tribute that he was a man after God's own heart. You know who he is! It is David! 　　　Acts 13:22 says, "After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’" 　　　God said that David was after his own heart! How could he be like that? He believed him and even risked his life. As the Israelites confronted Goliath, they did not believe in God wholeheartedly. From King Saul to the army of Israel were frightened and hid themselves whenever Goliath cried out to them. They could not come forward boldly relying on their God like David. However, David courageously proclaimed before Goliath, "You come against me with the sword, spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied." Then he was a young boy; Goliath was a general. Despite this he believed in God and confronted Goliath risking his life. The faith that risks one's life and limb! God dearly loves this faith and have great pride in it. David made a courageous declaration of faith before Goliath. 　　　1 Samuel 17:45-47 says, “David said to the Philistine, 'You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.' ” 　　　His declaration of faith was fearless and absolute. Furthermore, David respected Father God positively. As King Saul mobilized his army to kill David unceasingly, he was driven away like a mountain bird this way and that. Several times Saul had fallen into the hands of David. However, David did not kill him. Through this God tested him because Saul was anointed to be king by God. Kings and priests are to be anointed by God. Nowadays the servants of God are anointed by God. There are no volunteers in God's servants. God himself chooses the one whom he anoints by the Holy Spirit to be his servant. Then those who have God's anointing should be dealt with God's hands. Thus David did not kill the anointed Saul even though he had several opportunities to slay him. Though David had many individual flaws, he loved God absolutely and confessed his love toward him many times. Others rarely professed their love toward God while there is no one like David who confessed unceasingly his love toward God in Psalms. After he suffered great tribulation, he wrote lamenting psalms; when he received answers from God he wrote thankful psalms; when he experienced the majesty and love and grace of God he recorded praise psalms. He was the greatest king of Israel who sincerely loved his God. 　　　Psalm 18:1 says, “I love you, LORD, my strength.” 　　　 He was the first to confess his love towards God. Neither Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Moses, nor Joshua confessed their love toward God. They said they feared and respected God but never said that they loved him. God was impressed with David's word and loved him dearly. 　　　Acts 13:22 says, “After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’” 　　　It was David that committed his entire life to God and confessed his love to God. When he fought Goliath, went to war, confronted King Saul and repented of his adultery against Bathsheba, he always first looked for God. In times of trial and difficulties, he did not try to rely on his own but repented of his sins and believed in his God relying on him. David always started with prayer. 　　　Psalm 5:2-3 says, “Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.” 　　　David treated God as he is and served and loved him with a right attitude. This is how we should love God. God rejoices over David's faith, respect and love. God should be feared as God himself. You should not regard him as one of us. Absolutely respect and love and believe and rely on him. 　　　 3. God’s request for us 　　　 　　　Thirdly, there is God's request for us. God hates us when we regard faith, obedience, and love toward God as the relative choice. If we think we might believe or not, obey or not, and love or not, it is distasteful to him. 　　　Let's read Luke 10:27 together, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind." 　　　You should love your God with all your heart. There is no room to spare. With all your soul there are no two lives on the earth. With all your strength there is no strength to spare. With all your mind you ought to love God. It requires your absolute love. There is no room or space for it. With this unconditional love you must love and trust in your God. Micah 6:8 says, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” 　　　God wants us to walk with him. He does not want us to regard him as relative, but always think him as absolute. Look at God’s commandments. "You shall have no other gods before me." He requires our absolute respect. "You shall not bow down to idols." He is our only God and no other gods exist. Do not bow down before idols. Do not serve God and other idols at the same time. Such as money, status, fame, authority and success cannot be our idol at all. We must serve him absolutely. "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain." This is a request for absolute love. We ought not to use his name in our misdeeds. Do not abuse his name. We must respect, protect and give glory to him. "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." The Sabbath is God's day so that we should go to church and never neglect it. Live a God-centered life and meet him first on the Sabbath no matter how busy you are! 　　　Exodus 20:6 says, “--but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” 　　　God's jealousy is so great. Keep his commandments. When we love him unconditionally, God will bless us accordingly. 　　　Fourthly, the thing that we should do very carefully is to consider his Word very seriously, "Do not love anything except for God." God is very jealousy. He will not just laugh at our betrayal and let go of it. His jealousy will be burning fiercely with resolute judgment saying, "If you do not love me, just die right now!" 　　　Exodus 34:14 says, “Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” 　　　The Israelites were destroyed as they worshipped other gods, weren't they? Now God has endured with endless patience because he really takes us so preciously that he wants to give us another chance repeatedly. He loves us with a burning love. Therefore, the intensity of his love is equivalent to that of his jealousy. Do not expect any blessings from God after you rouse his jealousy. 　　　Joshua 24:19-20 says, “Joshua said to the people, ‘You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.’” 　　　His jealousy is amounting to this much. God claims the absolute ownership of us. He will not share us with foreign gods as long as he possesses us. God feels humiliated when we do not live a God-centered life. In the Bible, we can find those who chose God absolutely: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. When King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold and warned, "Whoever does not fall down and worship the image of gold will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace," everybody fell down and worshipped it, but Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stood up and refused to bow down before it. As Jewish captives, they were governors in Babylon. The King asked them, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? If you do not worship it this time, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace which is heated seven times hotter than usual." All the Babylonians watched this scene. God must have watched it carefully. Then what did Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answer to the King? "If our God is alive, He whom we serve is able to deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty that we will not worship the image of gold you have set up and rather be thrown into the furnace. What a magnificent word! We usually say that if God keeps his promise we will believe in him. However, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego boldly confessed that even if God did not deliver them, they would not worship the image of gold, but trust in their God. At this the heavens would be shaken violently and God would give them a big hand. When the King was enraged and he ordered them to heat the furnace seven times hotter than usual and throw Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego into the burning furnace, Jesus Christ appeared as the fourth man among them and took hold of their hands and danced with them. King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and said, "Weren’t there three men that we tied up and thrown into the fire? I see four men walking around in the fire, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”God took good care of these four men who risked their lives to choose God first obeying and loving him. 　　　Daniel 3:17-18 says, “we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” 　　　Please repeat after me, "But even if he does not." These words are very important. "I will trust in you even if you will not bless me. I will follow you even if you will not give me grace." This means that he will believe in and love God unconditionally. How could he do that? God already proved his love by sending his one and only Son to be torn in his flesh and shed his blood. He doesn't need to prove any more. We must believe it. God has provided his great love so that there is no need to require further proof. As we are convinced that God loves us, we must follow and believe in and obey and love him without any condition. 　　　Then we should take joy in God. He loves when we rejoice over him. Likewise, at home, wives are delighted as their husbands love them and vice versa. When parents take joy in their children, they are pleased with it and the other way round. People rejoice when others love them. God feels glorified endlessly as his children take joy in him and rejoice over him. 　　　Let's read Psalm 60:30-32 together, "I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. This will please the LORD more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hooves. The poor will see and be glad?you who seek God, may your hearts live!" In this way God is glad when we give thanks to him and rejoice over him. 　　　Psalm 37:4-6 says, "Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun." 　　　God said that he would give us the desires of our heart when we take delight in him. No matter what status or fame or authority we may have, God wants us to trust in and obey him absolutely. He does not want any mixed love with other things. Therefore, we should clearly discern what we should love and what we should not love. As people love what they should not love, God warns us in the Bible as follows, first, do not love the world. 　　　2 Timothy 4:10 says, "--for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia." 　　　The heart that does not live with faith, but with one's desires is the worldly heart. God said in 1 John 2:15, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them." 　　　1 John 2:17 says, "The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever." 　　　Second, do not love money. 2 Timothy 3:2 says, "People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy." This is what will happen in the last days. 　　　1 Timothy 6:10 says, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." 　　　Therefore, money itself is not an evil. To love money is the root of all kinds of evil. The Bible says that we should love God rather than love money. We must love God only. 　　　Luke 10:27 says, "He answered, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' " 　　　Above all, we should love God. The thing that we should consider very carefully is that we may be rebuked by God as we love other things with God. He is our Father. However, he very closely treats us like his wife. He is our Father, but many times he calls us as his wife. In Song of Songs, he deals with us as his wife. I want to ask you to become his faithful wife in the name of the Lord. 　　　The more a husband loves his wife, the more he becomes jealous, claiming absolute ownership and exercising more and more dictatorship. The more he loves us, the greater his ownership and dictatorship becomes. God wants a stronger ownership from us. How much? He asked us, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind." Where can we find this desire to possess? Nevertheless, God so loved us and paid the full price for his love that he will not let go of us. How glorious and delightful that God loves us so much! How miserable it would be if he treats us as redundant, but he needs us unconditionally. He loves us as long as he confesses that without us he will not survive. Therefore, we must love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind.