 Well, what an incredible time we have and what incredible stories and testimonies we hear. Amen. When you think, you know, a person that was at the end of their life, at the end of the rope, and God came out and did such a great thing for them, and not only just saved them, but made them a savior to others. How many of you guys remember the message from Pastor this Sunday? Well, few of you, few of you, that's good. Let me just remind you just quickly what Pastor said. He said there is no greater calling than to be a savior, meaning that we, of course, we have one savior, Jesus Christ. But being that person that leads them to the savior, being that person that guards them like Moses, that became a savior to his generation, to his people, he led them out of the bondage into the promised land. There is no greater calling. There is no better place to be, than to be in a place where you can help somebody, when you can lead somebody out, when you can hear a story like that, that know that somebody's life's being, that you somehow, some way, maybe just by inviting, maybe just by praying, maybe by just simply saying, listen, it's not over for you. God can help you. Give him just a little bit of hope, and the life changes around. And the satisfaction from it knowing that you had just maybe a little bit to do with helping them out, with their situation turning around. I think the satisfaction from it is unsurpassable, if there is such a word. Unsurpassed, let's just say that. Amen, amen. I'm just, I'm going to talk about it a little bit somewhere along the lines, what we just, what Vladimir started talking, what we've been talking about and going into the next week. But first, we'll start with reading the scripture. Let's start with that. Mark, chapter 12, and let's start reading from chapter verse 29. So let me give you a background story to this before we read, so that you know the context of the story. Jesus is preaching, teaching, going around places, and Pharisees, and teachers of the law of that day, they come and they try to catch Jesus in some kind of, they try to trick him, or they try to catch him in something that he was saying wrong, so they can accuse him and they, and they can, and they can crucify him or they can get rid of him. Because by that time, Jesus was already, the movement that he was leading was getting big, people started declaring that he's a king and all that. And so here's the story, it comes that people trying to trick him earlier and asking him by different questions and all this stuff. And one of the teachers of the law came to him and said, verse 28 says, which is the first, last line? Which is the first commandment of all? So that was the question, verse 29. Jesus answered him, the first of all commandment is hero Israel, the Lord of God is the Lord is one. You, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment and second like it is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. So that's the story. A teacher, a law, a law teacher comes and says, trying to test him at the same test to hear his wisdom and says, what is the greatest commandment? Jesus answers him. Actually, let's read further on so that you understand the title of my message. So the scribe said to him, well said teacher, you have spoken the truth for there is one God and there is no other but he. And to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul and with all the strength. And to love one's neighbor as one's selves is more than the whole burn offering and sacrifices. Okay. And then Jesus answered to him and said, you are not far from the kingdom of God. So the title of my message is more than sacrifices and then we'll get to that towards the end. So Jesus answers the question of the Pharisee, of the teacher and he says to him that the greatest commandment is to love God and to love him with all of your heart, to love him with all of your mind, with all your understanding, with love and with all your strength, with all your passion. And the reason why he said to love God is because the relationship can't exist without love. So in order for us to have a relationship with God which is something that Jesus came to restore, in order for us to have a relationship with God we must have love. Any relationship functions on love to certain degree, less or more, but without love and mutual understanding there can be no relationship. And so Jesus has come to this earth because the connection and the relationship with God has been lost. In the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were created they were created for relationship, they were created for love, to have a relationship with God. And God would come in the evening in the cool of the day when it was nice, God would come and man and God would have a relationship, they would have a communion, they would have a fellowship, they would talk, they would be, let's say they would be best friends. And when through the sin of humanity, the relationship through the sin of Adam and Eve, through disobeying God, eating an apple, the relationship was broken. And then for many, many years, for hundreds and thousands of years God was unfolding this plan to send his son Jesus Christ so that the relationship with God can be restored. And so this is the pinnacle of Christianity. This is the main point, this is the main attraction if I can say that, this is the main thing is that now we can have a relationship with God. Now relationship with God is available. And therefore Jesus said that there's nothing greater in life than to have a relationship with God. And the way you have a relationship with God is you love God. Prophet Shibi Joshua said this quote, said Christianity is not the works that we do, but the relationship we maintain and the atmosphere produced by this relationship. See a lot of people think Christianity is all about doing the right things. Christianity, a lot of people associate with the Ten Commandments doing these ten things and if you do them and if you do them perfectly and if you try to live your life to the best of your abilities, if you do things the right way, you are a good Christian. Doing those things is good, following the Ten Commandments is good for your benefits and for the benefits those that are around you. For example, like don't steal, you know, don't steal so that you don't get, it's punishable by law, but second of all so that you don't hurt your neighbor. You don't take away from them. So all those things are good, all those rules and regulations and the principles, they all have its place. But all of this comes out out of the one thing is the love for God. The reason why we wouldn't go worshiping in idols is because we love God. The reason why we don't do these and that, those things, the reason why we don't go kill each other is because we love God, because we love each other as well, at least that's what God commanded us. The reason why we don't go steal and this of that sort, all of those things they come out out of one thing is they come out out of love of God. And many Christians today are misled by doing things for God and forgetting the most important part which is to have a relationship with God is which is to have a love for God, which is to trust God, which is to listen to his voice and follow his leading, which is for your benefit in the first place. And so number one relationship that we should strive to maintain as Christians above all other relationships, above our family members, above our parents, above our spouses is the relationship with God because out of that relationship we'll flow other relationships. You heard the quote and the thing we constantly say is that you can't give love unless you receive it, unless you have something. They can't come and ask me for a million bucks if I don't have them, even if I was so generous that I would want to give it to you for some reason. I just don't have it. Okay, I just don't have it. And therefore we can't be best of ourselves. We can't be the best spouse we can be. We can't be best father that we can be. We can't be the best person that we can be unless we have a relationship with God where we draw love from, where we draw, where we, this is the source of our life, the source of our love, the source of our kindness and of our good. Amen? So Christianity again, and if you write in notes, write it down. If you don't just write it down in the notes, Christianity is not about the works that we do, but it's the relationship that we maintain. And then everything else comes out as part of that relationship. We must be very careful for those of us, especially that I've been coming to church, people maybe that are new to church don't usually struggle with that called first love. But for those of us that've been in church for some time, we must be very careful that the things that we do for God, that they don't become God in our life. We must be very careful that we don't get busy in doing things for God and forget about the very reason why we're doing them for. We must never let the ministry or the works that we do for God, even the good things that we do become our God. The love for God must be first in our life. The fellowship with God must be first in our life. Bible says, in John 15, Jesus, when he was talking to his disciples, don't forget the verse, anyways, in John chapter 15, he said, first you abide in my love, and then he said verse later, love one another. Is that we first, we have to learn to be in relationship with God. We have to learn to treasure our relationship with God. We have to learn how to spend time with God. We have to learn how to trust God. We have to learn how to hear from God, how to be led by God in our relationship with God. Amen? Amen? So that we don't get carried away with doing things for God and forget what the Christianity and relationship with God is for. What Jesus really came to die for, because God has already given the rules and the laws to Moses, and if this was enough, Jesus didn't have to come and suffer this brutal death. Imagine a God of the universe, God that lives outside of the universe, that God that lives outside of the time, God that lives outside of our dimension had to come and somehow squeeze into this, to this flesh and bones, so that he can show us and bring a relationship to us, so that we can have again a relationship that we were created to have. In a, in a, in a practical son's story, a lot of concentration goes on the practical son that left the father's house, and of course his life, he spent all the good things that he received from his father, from his, from the house, he spent all his possession, he ended up being as a, eating with the pigs, and then finally he realized that he can go back and at least maybe be a servant, and father accepted him with loving arms and restored his position as a son. But a lot of times we, this is the main point kind of, of the story, but I want us to think about the older son. In that story, the older son was always with the father. Let me say it in other words, the older son was always in the church. He kind of like grew up in church. Maybe let's, let's say he's been going to church for a very long time, or maybe his parents were Christians, and he came, he started coming to church as a child, he continued to go as a child, you know, he grew up in church, now he's established in church, he goes, he doesn't miss his every Wednesday, every Sunday. But in this story, what I see is that the older son, even though he said, I did everything you ask me to do. I mean, this is a good son. I mean, how many of us did everything God ever asked us to do? Yeah, we didn't, none of us come even close to that. But he says, I asked everything you did of me, I did everything, I've been with you this whole time. But he said, you don't let me enjoy things with you. And father said, son, when did I ever stop you from enjoying things in my house? And so the picture that I see, the mentally that I see, in other words, in this saying is that the son was always in the house, was always concerned about doing, was always concerned about, was always concerned about make sure I do everything the father says to do, but he had no relationship with the father. Let me say it in other words, he found no delight in the father, in his company. In having a fellowship with you, a communion with him, having a party with him, enjoying the things that the father had for him. He said, son, I always was with you and everything that I have was always yours. Whatever his mind is yours, you can always have it, you can always enjoy it. But because lack of relationship with the father, he wasn't unaware of those things. Lack, not knowing the father's heart, that was the problem because he had lack of relationship with God. And therefore he was reluctant to go into this, the party that the father made for his older, younger son, he was reluctant to go because he didn't have the father's heart, because he didn't have the relationship with the father. He was hating his neighbor, if I can quote unquote said. He was hating his own brother because he was jealous that father supposedly loves his more or something who gives him more attention. So we will not be able to love our neighbors, to love our brothers and sisters, we will not be able to love those that are around us, like Jesus said, to love your neighbor as yourself if we don't have a relationship with the father. Does that make sense? We must be very careful so that the things that we do for God do not become our God. During things for God, it can be ministry, it can be whatever it can be, will become work, will become mature. If there will be no love, or in other words, if there will be no delight in the relationship with God. If we get so concerned to do things for God, to make myself right, to do this and that, to stop doing these things, to whatever it is in your life, you'd be so concerned to, and the concern for the, to have a fellowship with God, to have a relationship with God, to learn to hear his voice, to learn just to enjoy presence with God, then all those things, they will become work, they will become a chore, they will become the things that you have to do, and usually those people, they become, we call them religious people, we call them, they usually become very bitter people. They usually become things that do, and if you don't do, you're not good enough, they begin to judge you, they begin to condemn you, and you think, oh, I'll never become one of those Christians that judge. You know, it's very, nobody ever starts off, says, okay, I want, I want to be like that person, that judges everybody, yeah, he's a good Christian. Nobody starts off that place. You know where people start off at? They start off slowly, but surely, drifting away from enjoying the relationship with God, into being more concerned how they perform for God, and then their performance becomes their God, and then when somebody doesn't perform up to the par, they judge them, like the older son, father, I've always been with you, I've done everything you said, but you never did this for me, you did that for me, and they begin to judge, the father, they begin to judge, the younger son that messed up. So, Prophet Ibn Jasha also said this quote, he said that nothing will keep you on course like a deep love for God. If you wanna run the race in your life and finish it, if you want to run your destiny in life and finish it, if you wanna live your life out to the full potential, nothing will keep you on course than the deep love for God. That's the only thing that will keep you on course, because love is, because life is full of challenges, life is full of, life will throw you a curve ball. Just because you're a Christian doesn't guarantee that you will have a perfect life, just because you're a Christian and you know God and you pray to God and you devote yourself to God, that doesn't mean you will not have challenges in your life, that doesn't mean you will not go through obstacles, that doesn't mean you're not gonna go through hardships in your life. But with that, what, it does guarantee you that you will go through them. What it does guarantee you is that I will go through the valley of the shadow of death and I will not fear evil. What will guarantee you is that on the other end, he will set up a table before my enemies, amen? This is what, this is probably one of my favorite quotes is that nothing will keep you on course like the deep love for God. If you want to have a strong life, you must have a strong relationship with God. If you want to have a strong ministry, you must have a strong relationship with God. A lot of times people start off, you know, passionate and they get saved, they get, they experience God's love, they get really passionate and they love spending time with God, but over time, those feelings end, the first love ends, or fades away and people begin to get occupied with doing things for God and being perfect and doing the right things and all this stuff. And the love for God takes the backseat and sometimes it's not even traveling with you. You're traveling alone, God is not even with you. You're still doing things for God and you're claiming that you're doing things for God but the love for God has not been a part of it. So we must understand, in John chapter 15, Bible says, Jesus said that, Abide in me and as I abide in you, then you will have fruit. If we want to have fruit in our life, if we want to have purpose in our life, if we want a life to show for something, if we want a life to have meaning, if we want a life to be just growing and blossoming and having something to show for, having something that will satisfy you and people around you. Number one thing is we must abide in God. We must find delight in God. We must find fellowship with God. We must find that love for God. God, Jesus said, love God with everything, pretty much. Your heart, your strength, your understanding. I mean, I don't think you left anything out. I don't think anything else you can love God with. Pretty much He said, just love God with your own. Love God with your own. Before Peter was called into ministry, Jesus asked him, Peter, it's after Peter betrayed him and out of people was regretting that he betrayed Jesus. He denounced, let me rephrase this, he denounced Jesus. Jesus betrayed him, but Jesus comes to him and says, excuse me, Jesus comes to me after all the things that Peter tried to do. Peter tried to prove to Jesus. If even of all the disciples, they will leave you. I will not leave you. He was so focused on doing things for God. He was so focused and that's why one of the reasons I think he failed at it. And then after he realized, Jesus comes to him and he says, Peter, do you love me more than these? And he asked him three times and Peter answered three times the same to him. He said, yes, Lord, I love you more than these. I wanna ask you, what these is in your life? God is asking you, Jesus is asking you, do you love me more than you put in the blank in there? What is the takes priority in your life? What is that takes, and the way you know what takes priority in your life is what takes time in your life. That's relationship with God take time. You can't have relationship without putting time into it. And you know sometimes how good the relationship is, how much time is spent. If you wanna know a person, you can know them through text messages, but you will know them only so much. If you wanna know a person by meeting once a month with them, you will know them so much. You meet with them once a week, you'll know them a little bit more. But if you wanna go further, you kind of surround yourself with them, you be around them. You learn about them, you learn about their habits, you learn about their likes and dislikes. You learn who they are as a person by being around them, by spending time. And so I want to ask you, what does take your time? What is these in your life? And so Jesus is asking you, Peter, do you love me more than these? I wanna ask you same thing question. What is something that takes priority in your life? It actually might be doing things for God. That could sometimes actually the biggest hindrance. We get so deceived that we have a relationship with God just because we do things for God. But those two things are completely separate. So I wanna encourage you. I wanna challenge you. I wanna just really implore you, have a relationship with God. Love God with all your heart. Spend time with God in your everyday life. Just set aside some time for God. Maybe you've never had a relationship with God. Start with five minutes. Just simply coming before God and just saying, God, I wanna have a relationship with you. I wanna know you more. Please teach me. Pick up the Bible, read a chapter. If you can't read a chapter, read half of the chapter. Do whatever it takes, but start somewhere. If you have a relationship with God, grow further with Him. There's always more to have with God. He's unending and we can have as much of Him as you willing to take. Amen? So I wanna encourage you. You put God's first in your life. God will begin to bless you. God's gonna pour out His love on your life. God's gonna elevate your life. God's gonna, you make your relationship with Him priority. He's gonna make your life a priority. Your dreams, your goals, your purpose, your business, your career, your family. The things maybe are falling apart in your life. You feel like you need to do things. You need to put things together. I wanna challenge you. First, have a relationship with God. And I promise you that the rest of the things will come together. Amen? Amen. The other part of the scripture that I just wanna quickly mention and to kind of tie it into our vision and into the next week that we're going in is Jesus. If you notice in the beginning that Jesus, when Jesus was asked what is the first commandment? So he was asked about one commandment but look how Jesus answers. Jesus answers that, love God and then without separating it, he says love your neighbor. Love God, love your neighbor. I love, I was listening to Pastor's Mattel message recently and he brought this example which was really, really made it so really clear for me. He said it's like a bird. You can take an example as a dove. Loving God is one win. Loving people is the other win. Some people have one win, loving God but they show nothing. They bring nothing out of their prayer closet. They bring nothing out of their relationship with God to the world. And therefore their destiny is crippled. They try to fly. They try to achieve something in their life but it's unbalanced. Other people have the other extreme like Peter. I will never deny you. He always was concentrated on doing, doing, doing, doing and the relationship with God and spending time with God like John. He just loved laying on Jesus' chest and just spent time with God. And one person has one or the other but Jesus said is we need to do one and the other. Is that we need to have both wins if we want our destiny to soar. If we want to fly. If we want to just not just walk on the ground and pick up the food but if we want to really soar in our life. If we want to really achieve great things in our life we must do one and the other. Does it make sense? We genuinely love God and that love will flows onto people. We can't love people without first loving God because you can't give something that you don't have. You first get love and then you're able to give to others. In John chapter 15, Jesus said, first abide in my love and then love one another. We must love our neighbors. In another scriptures in New Testament there's a scripture says like this. How can you love God? How can you say that you love God that you do not see and hate your neighbor that you do see? We, Bible says it's impossible. If you truly, truly, genuinely love God you will love people. We must love people. As a church if we gonna achieve the destiny that God has called us to be if you will achieve the destiny that God has called you to be you cannot go without loving people. And in Matthew the same story is written. The teacher trying to kind of justify himself not to look stupid that he has such a silly question. He said, who is my neighbor? And Jesus explained who is the neighbor? He said, it's the person that has a need. This is your neighbor. How many of us have person that has a need? Oh, there's just two people. I'm sure there's more. Okay, that's a little bit more. Okay, so a person that has a need a person that maybe needs love, maybe needs attention, a person that maybe needs care, a person that needs help. This Bible says this is your neighbor. This is what Jesus says, this is your neighbor. So I want us to keep that in mind to keep this in mind for next Wednesday that's coming up. And not just for Wednesday. It's not, we don't wanna live just an event base. We just create events to accommodate our lifestyle. Okay, so we don't live just, okay, we have one Wednesday a month. So for that Wednesday I'm just, that's the only Wednesday I'm gonna go and try to bring somebody. No, no, no. Jesus said, when you love God, that love overflows. When you really love God and you really have a relationship with God, you can't help but share it. You can't help but you see somebody need, can I pray for you? Even if you don't know how to say it or how to pray and you just been in church for, I don't know, it's a second time or first time. Just say, Lord Jesus help him, that's good enough. God hears the prayer of your heart. Okay, so let's concentrate on those two things. Two things, remember, loving God and loving neighbor. They have to be both equal in your life. Because you can't have one wing, gigantic wing and can you imagine one's like little, one develop little thing. It's just not gonna work. It's not gonna work. We must live out the love that we receive with God. But then at the same you can't, if you didn't receive anything, you can't go out and give it. You know, it takes energy. It takes efforts. It takes love to go out and constantly pouring to people. Those of you that do it all the time, you know, you get empty. Sometimes like, man, I just need some encouragement today. And that's why we're the relationship of God exists. You can't continue to give, give, give, give without receiving. So loving God and loving people. You know, I heard this quote somewhere. I don't remember who said it. He said that the highest form of spirituality is when we learn to love people unconditionally. You know, the highest form of spirituality is not that we're so holy, molly, God almighty. We're unapproachable. We judge people like, oh, they're not as good as I am or they don't do like what they're supposed to do. No, the highest form of spirituality is when we are able to fit everyone with their shortcomings and mistakes and their failures and still love them unconditionally like God does. Amen? So I want you to be encouraged. So anyways, the reason for my title was is that at the end, the Pharisee said that loving God and loving people is greater than any sacrifice that you can bring to God. Those two things, as you can do, you can move mountains supposedly for God. You can do great exploits for God, but if you don't have love for God and love for people, this is not, this is nothing. It compares to no sacrifice. So that's why I title my message more than sacrifice. I want us to check ourselves. I want us to view ourselves. Number one thing, do we have a relationship with God? Do I have a relationship with God? Ask yourself the question. Second of all, do I love something in my life? Do I treasure something in my life? More than the relationship with God. Jesus is asking the question, Peter, do you love me more than these? What is these in your life? What can you feel in the blank? And a third thing is that let's love people. Let's spend their life on people. Let's dedicate ourselves to people. Let's pray for people. Let's care for people. You heard the testimony of this lady that went through such a horrible, horrible time in her life. What if there was somebody at the age of 14, like some of you here, that go to school with some of those kind of people, if you just invited them and said, look, can I be your friend? Can I tell you something? You don't have to go through this alone. Can I pray for you? Yes, you're going through this situation, but listen, God can heal you. You don't have to wait till you're 25 and you're holding a gun to your head to realize that there is an answer. There are people like that. There are people with extreme cases like that. There are people maybe not so extreme cases, but there's people maybe that are just like simply addicted to your pain pills. Maybe some people just struggling with depression, people struggling constantly with suicidal thoughts, or maybe it's just heaviness over the life. I want to tell you that there are people that are waiting for you to answer the call, to come up to them and say, listen, I want to be your friend. Listen, there's hope for you. There's an answer for you. Come with me to church. Come with me to your home group. Come, I want you to introduce to my leader, or if you're our leader, let me pray for you. God can give you a hope. God can give you an answer. God can set you free and bless you. Let's be a people of answers. And I promise you, if we take care of God's business first, God will take care of you. God will take care of you. Disciples came to Jesus and I'm gonna finish on that. And they said, Jesus, we followed you. We left everything. We left all our businesses. We left our houses. We left our families. We left all of this. What are we gonna have as a result of following you, as a result of serving these people, as a result serving the crowds, passing out the bread and fish, as a result attending to them. What are we gonna have? Jesus said, you're gonna have in this life much, much more than what you left, but in eternity even more. Come on, let's put our hands together for Jesus and his great promise in this place.