Tim Timberlake - With All Your Heart
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Summary:
In this message from the «Love Language» series based on Mark 12:30, the preacher calls believers to love God with their whole heart—not partially—by focusing on the inner life rather than external appearances. Drawing from 1 Peter 3:4, he stresses developing the «hidden person of the heart» through spiritual disciplines. Key points include listening with all your heart to block the enemy’s whispers, forgiving fully to heal and overcome, practicing humility by putting others first, and returning completely to God in trust, allowing Him to direct paths and exceed expectations.
Welcome and Opening
Good morning, Celebration! It’s so good to see you, and if you are watching online or at one of our locations, welcome! If you are driving and watching, turn me off right now. Don’t do that! Last Sunday in the lobby, somebody said, «Yeah, we’re just driving and watching.» I said, «Don’t do that! Hate for you to run into the back of somebody.» On behalf of Celebration Church, come on, somebody! But it’s good to be here. We’re going to get right into the Word.
If you’ve got your Bibles, I want you to go to Mark chapter 12, verse 30. They’re going to throw it up on the screen. I want to share with you for a moment in our series, «Love Language.» «With all your heart, with all your heart.» Mark chapter 12, verse 30 says: «You must love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.» Then he added, «The second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these.»
Jesus takes the commandments and compiles them into two simple yet important statements: love God and love your neighbor. It sounds simple, but what is simple is not always easy. Can I get a good Amen on that? Let’s pray. We’re going to dig right into it.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for your Word. We thank you, God, that you are working out of us everything that does not reflect you. God, we ask that you would do it deeper in our hearts today. We want to be more like you, God. We want to reflect your grace, your glory, your mercy, your love. In Jesus' name, we pray, Amen.
The Underbelly of the City
Some years ago in Pittsburgh, there was a great flood that flooded the city. The city had to go in and dig up some of the streets and roads, which gave the citizens of Pittsburgh an opportunity to see the underbelly of the city. As people began to look at how detailed and how much went into what people normally could not see, it created a buzz in the city. The city actually offered opportunities for people to participate in tours that would allow citizens to go under the city to see what all it entailed. There were pipes that people didn’t know about, there were wires that people didn’t know about, and there was transit that people didn’t know about. Because of this flood and because they had to dig in, people got a chance to see what the underbelly of the city was.
As I was reading this story a few weeks ago, it reminded me of a passage of Scripture that was written by Paul. It’s found in 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 4. It says, «But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.» What he’s saying is: put more emphasis on the inner man than you do on the outer man. Put more into your heart, put more into what people can’t see than you do into what people can see.
Focus on the Inside
Have you ever talked to somebody and you ask them where they’re going, and they said, «I’m going to the barbershop»? You know, this could be an all-day thing: I go to my barbershop; I know my barber will talk to me for about four hours. They take about 20 minutes to cut my hair. I know I’m going to be in the barbershop all day long; we just talk, talk, talk. My wife goes to get her hair done—it’s going to be about five hours. I know that whole afternoon is just shot. It doesn’t make any sense; they comb every strand of hair. What are you in there doing for five hours? Going to get her nails done—it’s going to be about 17 hours. We only got 10 of them! What’s taking so long?
We spend a lot of time sometimes on the outside of our bodies, what people see, but oftentimes we don’t spend much time on the inside, what people can’t see. What I’ve come to understand is that if we’re not careful, people will think we look amazing on the outside until we open our mouths, and they’ll discover the underbelly of who we are. Have you ever met somebody that you thought was pretty nice until they started talking? My God, keep your mouth shut! What in the world is going on? That’s a nice-looking couple until you hear them communicate with each other. Oh my God, they’ve been listening to some bad stuff.
What he’s talking about is putting more work into the things that people can’t see versus the things that people can see. You know what I believe we need? We need spiritual weight rooms. We need to construct spiritual weight rooms. People go to the gym all the time; they get their sweat on. Have you ever seen somebody just walk around the gym and wonder what they’re in there for? Just walking around? There’s a gym—I won’t call it a name—but they hand out pizza in there. That doesn’t make any sense at all. They’re just handing out slices of pizza. It’s kind of intuitive, while I’m here, man. I don’t need slices of pizza; I need you to show me how to lift these weights.
We need spiritual gyms that allow us to work on the inside more than we work on the outside. We’ve got enough people who are vain in the world today. I mean, we have enough people working on the outside with no depth on the inside. We need an institution—call it the church—to rise up so that we can work on the inside more than we work on the outside. Did you ever notice every attack that you come under, every single enemy that comes after you never comes after your muscles? It never comes after your workout routine. It never comes after you in the gym. It always comes after the things that people can’t see. It comes after your mind, it comes after your heart, it comes after your thought process. Because if he can get a hold of this, it’s not long before he can get a hold of this.
It’s important that we understand how to surrender our hearts to Christ so that we can work out things that people can’t see. In Mark chapter 12, verse 30, he’s saying, «Serve the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your might.» He’s saying, «I don’t want some of you; I want all of you.»
Listen with All Your Heart
I jotted down four things that I want us to look at today very quickly. The first one is this: if we’re going to serve the Lord with all of our heart, we have to listen with all of our heart. We have to listen with all of our heart. If we listen with half of our heart, the enemy has room to get in there. Have you ever been talking to somebody and they’ve been talking to you, and the enemy whispers in your ear, «Did you hear that? I told you they said that.» Yeah, they talk to you. You’ve been talking to your spouse, and they say something, and then we say, «Her tone was disrespectful, wasn’t it?» Why? Have you ever been talking to your husband, and you ask him to do something, and he responds with «Huh?» and the enemy whispers, «He’s ignoring you again, girl. Do what I told you last week!» He’s not ignoring you; he is actually thinking about absolutely nothing.
It is a real place in the mind of a man; it’s a real place. How many men in here got delivered and set free last week? I can’t tell you how many people came up to me, just in the lobby and at the town center, saying, «Pastor, I got delivered last week. You helped me understand my husband!» So many arguments this week. «Honey, what are you thinking about? Nothing.» It’s a real place; it is a tangible, real place for a man.
Let me help you out; I need to take this a step further. Men talk to me, and they talk about absolutely nothing because they’re not looking for answers for anything. You ever notice that we talk about sports? When we talk about work, we’re not talking about work; we’re talking about the people at the workplace—not the actual details of the work. You know what? We don’t want to answer nothing while someone answers everything. Everything! «Baby, how was your day?» «It was good.» «No, no! Like who did you talk to?» I want to hear every conversation. «Yeah, everything you do!» «Did you get the mail out of the mailbox?» «How many pieces of mail did we get?» «Maybe I don’t know; half of it’s trash anyway!»
I don’t know because women are into the details; men are in the space of nothingness. They are in two real places. Let me help you out; both are needed. This is why women talk to everybody about everything—everything! They go talk to you about the kids, they go talk to you about the employee, they go talk to you about their friends, they go talk to you about their mama and everything that’s happened in their life. Kids go to talk to mama; they don’t even bother with daddy.
Max was in the store with me yesterday, and Jenny asked mom—sitting right beside mama—“Can I get this toy?» She said, «Ask daddy.» He looked at me, he looked at her, he looked at the toy; I put it back on the shelf right there. I said, «You’ll get your bottom beat; you keep that up!» Kids don’t even bother talking to daddy; there’s a problem. They go talk to mama. If they want something, they go talk to mama. If they need something, they go talk to mama. Daddy’s sitting right there beside them, and they get up, go find mama, and talk to her, but men won’t talk to anybody. We keep it all in.
It’s just like a soda bottle: every single day we wake up without letting some stuff go. It’s like shaking up that soda bottle, and you’re getting to work, and you’re ripping up papers. You don’t know why you’re going to your mailbox angry; you don’t know why you’re driving, and somebody waves at you, and you get angry. You don’t know why you’re just angry. «I need to let it out!» You need somebody that can listen. You have to listen with all of your heart— all of your heart.
Listen to me: my dad taught me when I was young. He said, «Son, at some point in time you’re going to get married, and at some point in time in that marriage, you’ll get into an argument. You’ve got two choices: you can be right or you can be happy.» He said, «Son, I’m a happy man.» I can’t tell you how many men I see leaving crying out of this place every week because they’re trying to be right.
Let me help you out: it doesn’t matter if you’re right if it positions your marriage to be at a standstill. Listen to me: my wife and I don’t have arguments. We don’t scream at each other. If there’s something we need to talk about and it’s a point of conflict, hear me: we talk about it. If we can’t talk about it, I just say, «Hey, you know what? It’s not that important.» I ask two questions: «Is it eternal?» and «How much is it going to cost?»
That’s it. If it’s not a solution to one of those questions, is it really worth arguing over? The answer is no. I was with my granddad one day; he’s gone on to be with the Lord now. He was 102 when he died. My grandmama was alive; she was moving around in the kitchen and asking questions. He was saying, «Yes ma’am, yes ma’am.» I said, «Man, this is amazing!» At this point, he was 95 years old; Salem Couch, grandma say something, he’d say, «Yes ma’am, yes ma’am.»
This is amazing! She’s going off, chiding in the kitchen. «Did you hear me, JC?» «Yes ma’am, yes ma’am.» He’s sitting about as far from here to this podium. I said, «Grandad, can you hand me the remote?» He said, «Huh?» I said, «Can you hear me? The remote?» He said, «Hold on.» He turned his hearing aid up. I said, «What’d you say?» I said, «Can you hand me the remote?» He said, «Yeah, hold on.»
I said, «You didn’t have your hearing aid on.» He said, «No.» I said, «You keep that thing on, she’ll drive you crazy.» I later asked him, «How have you lived this long, happy?» He said, «You’ve got to know what to tune into and what to tune out.» Listen to me: whenever you don’t listen with all your heart, hear me, you allow the enemy to whisper in your ear, and you allow yourself to tune in to the wrong thing. If he tunes into what you’re thinking and what you’re saying, guess what? He’s dictating your relationship.
You’ve got to listen with all your heart, and it’s not easy, but it’s necessary. Are you listening to me? It’s not easy, but it’s necessary.
Forgive with All Your Heart
The second one is this: you’ve got to forgive with all your heart. Forgive with all your heart. This is a biggie because a lot of us carry around a lot of unforgiveness that we don’t talk about—unforgiveness that the person who affected us and offended us doesn’t even know about. They’ve gone on with their life and you’re stuck in a standstill because of what they did to you. You know, something that was meant to hurt you once can hurt you a lifetime if you don’t forgive and heal from it. You can stay stuck in the same place if you don’t heal from it.
Forgiveness is not for the person that offended or affected you; forgiveness is for you. You cannot decide how you get hurt, but you can decide how you heal, and healing starts with forgiveness. That’s why the table on Friday nights in your home is so important because it sets a precedent for the enemy. You draw a line in the sand: no matter what has happened, we will not allow him to dictate what we do. We will allow God to dictate what we do, and we will sit around the table. We will talk about how freedom is implemented through forgiveness.
Are you listening to me? It’s so important. Statistics and studies show that as we continue to have more advancements in technology, families are spending fewer moments together. I believe the average time a family spends around the table now is about 37 minutes a week because everybody is going in different directions: activities, sports, jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities, and all these different hobbies are taking us away from the table with our families. I remember growing up; every single night we sat at the table, and we heard from the head of our household. We heard from my mom what it was that we were eating because it was important that we sat at the table to understand the heart of each other.
We have to bring that back. Now we let our activities dictate when we come to church instead of allowing what we do in church to dictate our activities. I can’t tell you how many people I run into all the time and say, «You know what? I would come, but my kid has soccer practice.» «I would come, but I’ve got to do this at my job.» None of those things are eternal, and if we allow those things to get in the way, we get busy, but we don’t get full. And if we get busy without getting full, we will operate in unforgiveness and not even know it.
Some of you in here are not doing what God has called you to do because you feel like He’s letting you down. There’s some unforgiveness you have with Him because you’ve been doing what you know to be right, and you’ve been believing, you’ve been hoping, and you’ve been praying. You keep saying the same thing over and over again, but your faith is not in His ability to do something for you; your faith is in Him. Your mentality has to be: «God, if you do nothing else, you’ve been good.» Forgiveness is the beginning of healing.
You know what I believe forgiveness is? Forgiveness is the reset button for an overcomer. Forgiveness is the reset button for an overcomer. You cannot give God your whole heart and operate in unforgiveness. You cannot be completely and totally victorious in your life and operate in unforgiveness. You have to forgive those who have hurt you, and you have to move on beyond it. People tell me all the time: «Somebody hurts you, just cut them off. Just cut them off.» You know what? Somebody hurt me; I’m gonna kill them, I’m gonna kill them. Pastor, they hurt me. I’m just gonna kill—
You can’t do that! Listen, if you got your way, you would be alone in your life, right? And if you got what you’ve been expecting from God, then He could not exceed your expectations, right? He is not in the business of meeting your expectations; He is in the business of exceeding your expectations. That’s where Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20 comes in: «Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding…» It doesn’t say He meets; no, he wouldn’t be the God of more than enough if he just met your expectations. Thank God He does not meet our expectations because if He met your expectations, He would not be able to exceed them.
It’s important that we say: «God, I give my heart fully to you. I fully submit my life to you. You can have all of my heart, not just some of it.» So that I can understand how to fully forgive. God freely and fully forgave you when He gave you His Son. Now it’s time for us to fully and freely forgive others that offend and affect us.
Be Humble with Your Whole Heart
The third thing is this: with your whole heart, be humble. Be humble with your whole heart. This is an important one because we live in a society that is so focused on ourselves—so us-hungry. I’ve come to learn that God is a giver; the enemy is a taker, but humans are hoarders. We hoard everything; we want it all for ourselves. We want all the attention, we want all the focus, we want all the glory, we want all the praise—we just want it all. And we don’t operate in humility when we want it all.
It’s impossible to serve Jesus with all of your heart without humility. What does humility mean? Humility means I don’t mind stepping back so that Jesus can step in. If it’s always about you, hear me, it’s never about Him. If you’re full of yourself, you can’t be full of Him. My prayer every single morning is, «God, empty me of me, so that You can fill my life with more of You. I’m tired of seeing me; I’m tired of hearing me. I don’t need my own opinion; I need to follow the direction and the voice of Christ.»
It is impossible for me to do that without operating in humility. Mark chapter 12, verse 30 says, «Love the Lord your God with all your might, with all your heart, with all your soul, but then it says, 'And love thy neighbor as you love yourself.'» Have you ever thought about how much you love yourself? How much you love you? There is no one that loves you more than you love you in this earth. You love you; you feed you every day. You groom you every day. No one spends more time with you than you spend with you.
And Christ is saying, «I want you to love the person sitting beside you more than you love you.» Think about that for a moment. That means you have to step back and push people forward. That means you have to be a ceiling lifter. That means you have to be a king and queen maker. That means you have to submit to the will of God to actually think about someone else more than you think about yourself.
That’s the reflection of the love of Jesus Christ: love God—that’s the vertical relationship. Love your neighbor—that’s the horizontal relationship that completes the cross. When we think about how much He loves us, when we think about how much He’s done for us, it should bring us to a place of humility, understanding and knowing that without Him, we are nothing. Stop thinking about what other people have done to you, and start thinking about what you’ve done to Jesus, and He still forgives you. He still loves you. He still cares for you. He still wants to be with you.
I asked my wife last night; I said, «You know, I’ve got two different things kind of brewing in my spirit. One is talking about Hosea where God tells him, 'I want you to go marry this promiscuous woman. She’s going to run out on you; she’s going to cheat on you; she’s going to treat you bad. I want you to forgive her because that’s what My people do to Me, and I forgive them.' You think that’s a little rough?» She said, «Maybe so.» I’m not going to preach about that today, but I want you to understand that you cannot love two gods.
I want you to understand this: when you spend more time listening to your voice than using the voice of God, you love yourself more than you do Him. When you pick and choose, you’re running out on God. And this is the great thing about God: He says, «Listen, I know what you’ve done; I know your track record; I know how many times you’ve walked away from me. But every single time you turn your heart back toward me, I accept you.» And not only do I accept you, I welcome you with open arms! He has an expectation and an anticipation for your return every single time you turn away from Him because He loves you more than you could ever love you. He loves you more than anyone else can love you.
Love God with All Your Heart
And so the fourth and final point I want to make today is: you have to love God with all of your heart—not with just most of it, not with just a good percentage of it, but with your whole heart. You have to love Him because He loves you. He loves you so much that He gives you the opportunity through choice to love Him in return.
Do you know what love is? True love is choices. We often ask, «If God is so good, how come He lets this happen?» Because He loves us, and He gives us a choice. If I have to force you to love me, that’s not love at all. But if I give you the opportunity to love me and you do, that’s real, genuine love.
And some of you need to return back to the Father today with your whole heart and say, «God, I love you fully and completely, and I’ll return back to you.» Everyone, stand to your feet. See, loving with your full heart does not mean you understand. It means you trust Him. As a matter of fact, God will call you to do things that you don’t understand so that He could show up in your life and be who He said He would be for you.
In Proverbs chapter 3, one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture, verses 1 through 7 say: «Forget not my ways, but let your heart keep my commandments. It’s for the length of your days and long life and for your peace. It shall add unto you—let not mercy and truth leave you; bind them around your neck; write them upon the tablets of your heart so that you shall find favor and good understanding from the sight of God. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.»
Listen to this: it’s crazy for us to expect direction from God when we have not fully given Him our heart. It’s not that the direction is not there; it’s that sin blocks us from hearing the direction He’s given us today. God is asking you, «Can you give me your whole heart? Can you return to me and relinquish everything you don’t understand so that I can direct your path? Because if you can return, I can give you direction.»
You know, ignorance is not knowing, but craziness is not listening to the person that does. Today, everything you need, every question you need an answer for, God has the answer to it if you can return with your whole heart.
Invitation and Closing Prayer
So today I want to extend an invitation to those that know you need to extend your heart back to Christ. You’ve heard these four principles: you need to listen with all your heart, you need to forgive with all your heart, you need to be more humble, and you need to return your heart back to God in its fullness—not just some of it, not just most of it, not just 99,9%—but you need to return 100% back to Him.
And if you’re here today or you’re watching me online and you need to do that today, I want to extend an opportunity for you to do that. So listen, this is what I want: I don’t want anyone walking except those that are coming to the altar or those that have been designated. This is a pivotal moment for someone’s destiny. So if you’re here, you’ve heard them, and you need to come, come right now. Return your heart back to the Lord. Come at this time, wherever you are, no matter how far off you are, no matter how low down you are-just come at this time, come on! As you come, come with your hands lifted. Come on, it is your heart. Open it! Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!
I want to encourage you today: whatever the next step is that you need to take, take it today. If you need to get water baptized, take it today. If you’ve got that unforgiveness so deep in your heart that it’s paralyzing you, you need to take that dead man down and come back up a new person. Whatever you need to do to take the next step, take it today. If you need to find freedom, we’ve got classes for that. If you need to get into Foundations, we’ve got a Foundations class for that. Whatever you need to do to take the next step, take it today. And this is what I can guarantee: if you’re willing to take the next step, Jesus will meet you there.
So whether you’re here at the altar or whether you’re sitting in your seat knowing that you have a next step that you need to take, God said, «I’m with you.» Not only am I with you, but I’m for you! So everyone in this place, everyone watching me, wherever you are, I want you to lift your hands towards heaven right now as we pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are healing hearts in this place, God. We return our hearts back to you, and God, we say that You can have all of our hearts. God, You can have all of our minds. God, You can have all of our souls and all of our lives. We return it back to You because, God, we know that You can do more with it than we can.
And so, God, we thank You. As we free ourselves of ourselves, we embrace the destiny You have for us. God, destiny is bigger and better than we could ever imagine. Today is the day You exceed our expectations. We break the mold. Break the chains of the shackles. It’s free; it’s free!