So, have you ever struggled with math? I do all the time, every day, no matter what kind of math you're talking about, maybe it's the kind of struggle where you're adding something up and you get the wrong total. There was a little boy at a wedding, big family wedding. He was hanging out with his little cousin at the reception and his cousin said, hey, how many women can a man marry? And the little boy said with no hesitation. 16, his cousin said, where in the world you get that? He goes because I know how to add. What do you mean he goes, didn't you just hear what the preacher said? Four better, four worse for richer for poorer. That's, that's 16, that's 16. That is supposedly a true story that really happened. The little boy was eight years old and he figured that out from one wedding, it's good. One day a lawyer came up to Jesus and, and asked him a question. He said, hey, when you take all the commandments, which one's the greatest? That, that's kind of a math question, right? Hey Jesus, when you add up all of the commandments, which one is first, which one is the most important? Which one is number one? And how did Jesus respond? Well, we continue our series today called the greatest word ever. And the greatest word ever helps us to find and do the math of the greatest commandment ever. What's the word that leads to that commandment? Well, we're looking today in Matthew chapter 22 in the Bible, our message is titled God deserves it. And we pick up in verse 37 with how Jesus responded to the lawyer's question, verse 37. And Jesus said to Him, you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, Jesus did not say, you know what? That's a good question. Let me, let me go work on that. Let me do some reading and let me get back with you coffee next Tuesday and I'll, I'll have an answer for you. No, there's no hesitation without the blink of an eye, Jesus immediately delivers an answer and that answer is love. The greatest word ever is love. The greatest commandment is love in this moment. What Jesus did was he, he pulled the teachings of Moses together which this lawyer would have known. He knew the, the teachings of Moses and Jesus pulled together some, some ancient Jewish practices and this lawyer would have known those two. So Jesus pulls everything together in this one statement and the statement is, is part of what is known as the Shama. The shama is a, an ancient selection of scriptures from the Old Testament. It was what the Jewish people would recite all the time. In fact, they would recite the shama twice a day. They had it, it was on T shirts, bumper stickers. They knitted it into quilts. I mean, they, they had this thing everywhere. It was everywhere in their house, in their cars, everywhere. They were, these truths from the Old Testament were around and what was it that they were reciting? Well, here's just a portion of it. In Deuteronomy chapter six here, Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one and you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength, these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. So Moses many, many years before Jesus spoke, Moses said, here's what you need to know and this needs to be on your heart for something to be on your heart. It means that no matter where you're going, no matter what you're doing, no matter what you're thinking, no matter what you're saying, that you're doing those things with a pursuit that this one thing is what's driving what you're thinking and doing and saying and speaking everything. So to say that to do all with a love toward God is to say that as you do life you are pursuing in your attitude and your actions. A love for God. A love that is Jesus repeated. And as Moses delivered is with all of your heart and all of your mind and all of your soul and all of your strength, everything that you have. Now at first glance, this sounds crazy. Right. I mean, how in the world can you pull that off? How am I supposed to love God with everything I have have when I'm arguing with my spouse, when I'm yelling at my parents, when I'm working on my taxes, when I'm shaving, when I'm pulling weeds. And when we all have these moments right where we're doing things in life and we're like, well, I, I can't, I can't love God right now. I mean, if I'm going to love God, I've got to be at the church and I've gotta be wearing church clothes, you know, and, and that, that's the only place you can love God. That's, that's the only time it's appropriate to love God. I can't love God anywhere all the time. And it's true. Our, our, our minds and our hearts we struggle with, we don't struggle with the idea. Oh, it sounds cute. Let's make a quilt with it on it. You know. Let's, let's put a sign up in our office or on the fridge. Oh, yeah. Let's love God with all that. We have. It sounds good. But in the moments of life we're like, gosh, I, I can't do that. I've been on I 26 in traffic. I can't love God. We, we all have these moments where that's, that's just not possible. Well, let me let us off the hook a little bit. You're right. It's not perfectly possible for us to love God with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength all the time. But it won't be because we're not at church. I it won't be because we're at the wrong place, at the wrong time. We're in the wrong clothes. No, if, if there is a hindrance toward loving God, it's because we'll have the wrong heart is because on any given moment, our heart, my heart, your heart can be rude or arrogant or afraid or worried or apathetic or indifferent or angry or frustrated and, and all other kinds of emotions. We can be depressed and discouraged so much though that loving God is just not on our radar that there are things in our life that really hinder us from loving God, emotions and attitudes and actions that, that will hinder us from time to time. But if we peel all those things away and get down to the nitty gritty more often than not our inability to love God all the time with all that we have is because of sin. Sin keeps us from loving God because we are way too obsessed with loving ourselves and loving what we want that is the drive far too often of how we think and how we speak and how we act. Sin keeps us from loving God with all that we have. So, what can we do? How can we, how can we adjust? Well, it may be helpful for us to get a snapshot of, of what these things mean in the original languages when, when Moses was delivering the, the Hebrew language here. And so we'll just begin with the heart. What does it mean to love God with all of your heart? Well, it's very similar to what it means to love God with all your mind. In ancient times, they would have understood the heart and the mind as the seat of the thoughts. In other words, who you are in the deepest part of your thoughts, how you really, really, really think, what really makes you tick, what really makes you love the fuel of your love, all all of that's connected with the, with the heart and the mind. So to love God with all of your heart and mind is to love God with, with the core of how you think and how you feel and how you love. What about loving God with all of your soul? I was reading something about a guy who was a fireman many years ago and he said that every now and then they get a call across the radio and the call would be for a plane. That was coming into the local airport that might have some kind of mechanical problems. And so they were just given an announcement, given an alert, you know, that a plane was coming in and was having some trouble. But part of the announcement he said was always something that went like this and there are 82 souls on board. Well, the first time that announcement was made like that was, was back many, many, many years ago, more than more than 3000. And it was the Hebrew language that was saying the soul is the whole of a person's existence. It's, it is who they are. It is their thoughts, their attitudes, their actions, their abilities, their emotions, their organs, I mean, it, it is every part of who they are. So to love God with all your soul is to love God with your whole existence. And what about your strength? What, what does it mean to, to love God with, with all of your strength? Does that mean you're supposed to go join a, a Christian gym and start pumping up with Hans and Franz and getting all, getting all strong for Jesus. No, it's not what it means. Hear me now and believe me later that when it comes to following and loving God, it's not primarily about the muscles, it's about the muchness. That's how somebody describes the, the Hebrew word of strength that it, it means much. So the idea is that you are loving God with your muchness, with all that you own, with all of your possessions, with all of your abilities. So, a lawyer comes to Jesus and says, hey, what's, what's the greatest commandment of all of what's, what's the one that's most important? And Jesus says, well, here it is love God and love God with all of the deepest part of your thoughts and your feelings and your love, love God with the whole of your existence, all of it and love God with all of your muchness, with all that you have and all that you own. Now, looking at the Hebrew that makes it all easier, right? I mean, now that we know that it's so much easier for us to love God with everything that we have, right? No, it still sounds impossible. At least it does to me still still sounds really hard. Listen to what Jesus says next in verse 38 this is the great and foremost commandment. So not only does it sound a little difficult to do perfectly? Now, it's the greatest thing we can do. It's, it's the first and foremost commandment that we can honor in life. So this lawyer comes with his religious buddies and he says, hey, Jesus was which one is it? And Jesus says, when you're asking me what the greatest commandment is, guys, y'all know it. You, you memorize it, you got it on the bumper stickers in the T shirt. You hang it up at your house. You, you know this, you, you say it every single day, sometimes twice a day, crowds around Jesus were made up of super religious people. Some of them were known as Pharisees. Some of them were known as Sadducees and there were other religious folks around there. The Pharisees were more kind of blue collar and traditional. The, the sadducees were maybe a little more wealthy, maybe a little more liberal in their theology. And there's all other kind of religious folks in the mix. And one thing that they all knew how to do was to recite things. They, they knew how to recite good things, right? Things. They knew how to recite actual words from what we know as the Bible. Hey, they knew how to speak God's scripture, but what they recited never got to their hearts. At least often didn't get to their hearts. It, it wasn't on their heart. It wasn't changing how they thought and how they spoke and how they lived. It was just things that they did just, just words that they had anything sound familiar. I mean, that never happens to us. Right. If we're, if we're honest, we will read the Bible, we'll scroll through our Bible app and we'll see these wonderful truths about God and then we keep scrolling, you know, to all those vitamins and all those workouts and, you know, all the life Acts on tiktok, you know, or or we'll go check our email, we'll check our text messages or we'll watch TV, or we'll, you know, crank up our playlist or, or start listening to our podcast and all of a sudden those great, wonderful truths that we just heard. We immediately forget like we, we just ignore them and we move on, but we shouldn't why? Because you see God when it came to what our hearts need the most. He wasn't saying, hey, what I really need you to memorize is the weather this week. What I really need you to know is those sports scores. You know what I really need you to know. I, I would even include the leader board at the masters. You know, it's in the list. Ok? He said the breaking news and, and, and all the things, all those life hack videos on Tik Tok you. That's not what I need you to tattoo on your brain. That's not what I need you to write on your heart. Why? Because the weather changes and your team loses and the breaking news is old news. Once the new breaking news happens, I, I was reading something earlier this week that, that I had put in notes. I, I can't even remember now, maybe 10 years ago or longer. And I was just reading about an accident that had happened and it was a bridge and the bridge collapsed early in the morning. And I think it was five or six people died. And I'm reading that, I'm like, gosh, this just happened again. There's nothing new under the sun. The breaking news is only breaking news until about 23 seconds later when there's new breaking news and there's life hack videos. What will those life hack videos do for you when you no longer have life? We can't do anything with them when we're dead. But loving God, different, loving God with all of your heart and mind and soul and strength will always be the most important, most valuable thing that you can ever do with your life. There will never come something else down the pipe that is going to be more important than that. And not only is it the most important, most valuable thing to do the value of it is so great because it is the only thing that you will be able to do after you die. If you know Christ. In other words, loving God today is the only thing that happens in your life that will happen forever. I have no idea what the songs will sound like in heaven. We may never sing a single song that is sung in any church in Columbia this morning. Ever again after we die, it might be a whole new hymnal. Everything that we do today in some way will fade if it's not connected to the glory of God, but loving God forever. We start doing that today. It will always have value because it's the only thing that will not end in your life. It's the only thing that can't be taken away from you to love God with all of your thoughts and all of your emotions, with all of your existence. And all of your muchness is the one thing that will never end. And that's why Jesus says this is the first, this is the grace greatest. This is the foremost. This is the one love God first and most marriage, family jobs, sports, music, even churches, all these things as we know them will cease to be. But the intoxicating, thrilling, satisfying, joy of loving God forever will never ever end. And that's good fuel for today because you know, if, if I'm killing myself to make this church the greatest church on the planet which I I try to for the most part. But, but this church will end, there will be a year. There will be no homecoming at Holland Avenue because we'll be home. All the things that we know and love in this life are not bad, but they're not permanent. The only thing that's permanent is the glory of God. The only thing that's permanent is loving God. But how do we do that? How do, how do we love God with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength? I mean, are there, are there 12 steps? Are there seven habits? I mean, is there, is there something out there. Look, to be honest, we could probably come up with some, you know, we could probably take the Bible and come up with 12 or seven very creative ways to love God with all that you have. But I don't think that three sermon points in a cloud of dust is really going to help us in the nitty gritty of life. There's, there's gotta be something more than just the 12 and just the seven, there's gotta be something deeper that kinda grabs a hold of us because loving God in the way that we're talking about, it's not a do it yourself clinic at the Home improvement store on Saturday. It's not, it's not just a list. It's a way of life. It's, it's how we think it's how we live. It's how we act, it's how we speak. Well, let me graciously say it's how we're supposed to think. It's how we're supposed to live and how we're supposed to act if we are in Christ. So how do we make loving God a way of life? Well, in order to do that again, I think it's helpful to see the first time these things were mentioned the first time that God sent this message through Moses and, and what Moses was saying in the middle of all this because 3430 years ago, when Moses first delivered this truth to love God with all that we have. It was what the people needed the most then and then about 1994 years ago, when the lawyer stood in front of Jesus, it was still what the people needed the most then. And guess what, today it will still be and it is what we need the most loving God with all we have. So if it's always been that good, then it may be helpful for us to get a vibe, to get a bit of the atmosphere of what else was connected. The first time, this was said out loud. So listen, as I share just a few things briefly. From the first time Moses shared these things. Deroy chapter six. He said to the people. Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgment which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, you shall listen and be careful to do them so that it may go well for you. Moses says, look, I'm going to give you commandments from God. Listen and be careful to do them. Why? So that it will go well with you so that everything will go perfect for you so that nothing will ever go wrong in your life so that you always find the, the right date and the right job and your team wins and the the tax money is always all everything in life. So it'll go well, that's, that's what this means. No, it means so that when nothing is going well it will still be well with your soul that you'll still be satisfied with God. Listen, be careful to do these things so it will go well with you. And, and that's the first way we're looking for ways to love God. We, we have to listen, we have to listen to God in order to love God. There's, there's no quick way around it. It's like everything else in life. We, we have to listen and what are we supposed to listen to? Moses goes on Deuteronomy six verse five. And you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. Again, these words that Moses gave 3430 years ago are the same words that Jesus gave 1994 years ago. And it's the same words that we need to hear and embrace and enjoy today. Love God first love God most. This is the love that we need the most. We have to listen in order to love and we need to love first and most God. How again? Listen to the vibe, listen to the atmosphere. Moses continued these words which I'm commanding you today shall be on your heart. You shall repeat them diligently to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, when you get up, you shall also tie them as a sign to your hand and they shall be as frontlet on your forehead. You shall also write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. My buddy Brent and I, my childhood buddy, we were at the Masters this week and, and we kind of have a joke that whatever hat you wear to the masters is who you are and he goes, you need to preach a sermon on that, you know, whatever your hat is, that's, that's who you are. You know. So if you're, you know, if you're wearing a, you know, an Oklahoma sooners hat, man, you're a sooner, you know, I mean, whatever, you know, but, but it is fascinating because it's very true. You'll look at people's hats and it's like, oh, that's their club, you know, that's their golf clubs or? Oh, that's their business or? Oh, that's their favorite team. And it's, it's a very, very interesting, I think it's an interesting dynamic. Guess what? You wear a hat. All of us wear a hat every single day. There is something we're promoting with our life. Sometimes we promote it with a hat. Sometimes we promote it with a, you know, a little rubber bracelet. Sometimes we promote it with a T shirt. Sometimes we were promoted it with our mouse. But, but we're promoting, there's, there's something there and Moses says, look, these truths I'm giving you. This is your brand, this is your logo. This is what you are promoting. You are going to promote the love of God because the love of God is the only thing that lasts forever. The love of God is of greatest value. Listen, if we go across to Williams Bryce on a Saturday in the fall or if we go to Athens or if we go to Clemson or, or Ann Arbor or, or Knoxville or fans wherever you're going. Ok? There, there is always this understanding when we're looking, we know what these people are about. They're wearing what they're about. They're doing what they are about. They are cheering what they're about. They are immersed in this moment. They are immersed in their team and dear Christian, we need to be immersed in our God. It's not easy. But, but we have to be if we're going to love God first and most, we have to listen to God to love him and we have to be immersed in who he is in his character and his nature and the things that he is about. And why do we need to immerse like that? Moses continued de Army Six. Then it shall come about when the Lord, your God brings you into the land, he swore to your fathers to Abraham Isaac and Jacob to give you great and splendid cities which you did not build houses full of all good things which you did not fill carved cisterns, which you did not carve out vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant and you eat and you are satisfied. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Watch out that you don't forget the Lord. You know what those people were just like me and just like you, they, they were no different. They struggled to love God in the same reasons that we struggled to love God. And here's why we forget God. We don't do it as some kind of satanic atheist. We just forget Him. We get busy. We start thinking more about ourselves. We start thinking about the way things have always been done or we start thinking about the way we want the new things done and we forget God. We, we just forget Him, but we shouldn't, we shouldn't forget God because God deserves our attention. He deserves us, not forgetting Him because here's the thing I don't exist and you don't exist without God. How much money do you have in your savings account or your checking account or your retirement account or your investments or your stocks right now? How much money you got in a safe at your house or how many gold bars you got? You didn't get it without God. What kind of math are you able to do? I ain't able to do none. So God didn't give me the math gift. Ok? But, but whatever you're able to do whatever you're skilled at, whether you're retired or not retired, whatever it is that you're good at, you didn't do it. You may have worked hard, you may have trained. But whatever kernel of was that was there to begin with was not from you. It started with God. So if we're going to love God with all that, we have, we have to listen to God to love Him, but we have to remember we don't exist without him. So we should not forget Him. He deserves our attention because he created us. Moses goes on. You shall not follow other Gods. Any of the gods of the peoples who surround you. For the Lord, your God who is in the midst of you is a jealous God. So follow him or else the anger of the Lord, your God will be kindled against you and he will wipe you off the face of the earth. Well, there's a Hallmark card, right? I mean that, that, that, that sounds overwhelming and, and if we're honest, we hear that and we go gosh. So God just sits up in heaven going me, me, me, me, me, it's mine, it's mine, it's mine, it's mine. That's not what's happening. What God is doing is what God should do because there is no one else other than God. There's no, there's no one that compares to Him. He alone is the only one true sovereign God last Sunday morning. I was, or two Sunday mornings ago I was, I was driving in and got about halfway here and just started singing this song that, I don't know, it's probably 15 or 20 years old now. I, I don't know how old it is but, but it just came up in my mind as I was driving in and, and the words go like this. There's only one who never fails to beckon the morning light. There's only one who sets loose the gales and ties the trees down tight. When all around my soul gives way, he is all my hope and state. There's only one, only one holy one. You are not holy, holy, holy. I am not holy, holy, holy. Your favorite candidate is not holy, holy, holy. There's only one who is holy, holy, holy and that is the one true sovereign. God. We listen so that we can love and we listen and love God first. And most because he's the only one who deserves our love, the glory of His love, this kind of glory and love Moses goes on. You shall not put the Lord, your God to the test as you tested him at Massa. So here's what happened at NASA. People started whining. Yes, I know that God rescued us from slavery. Yes, I know that that God crushed our enemies. I mean, we saw the ocean rise up and we walk through and then we watch God crush our enemies. Yes, we know that we've had God in a cloud by day and a fire by night. Yes. We, we know that God has literally dropped food out of heaven for us. But today we're thirsty. Sound familiar. We ever have those moments where we're like, I know God has done so much for me, but today to today is different. The day I, I've got something else and Moses says, don't do that. Don't do that. If we're going to love God with all that we have, he's like, don't, don't do that. Don't make that the way you think. Don't ignore the hand of God in the past just because you're not getting what you want in the present. Don't, don't do that to yourself is really what Moses is saying. Listen to God to love God, love God first and most and trust Him more than testing him. Moses shared one more thing that should help us as we try to love God. Deuteronomy six begin in verse 20 love, love this portion of scripture. If you're a parent or grandparent, this, this is just great stuff. When your son asks you in time to come saying what do the provisions and the statutes and the judgments mean which the Lord, our God commanded you, then you shall say to your son, we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Moreover, the Lord provided great and terrible signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt Pharaoh and all his household, he brought us out of there in order to bring us in to give us the land which he had sworn to our fathers. That's one of the most beautiful passages in all of the Bible. When people come up to you, your kids, your spouse, your friends, people, you work with complete strangers and they will when they come up and go, what's the deal with you going to church? Let's I saw you at lunch over there reading a bible. What's that all about? What, what is this about? God did not intend for us to go? Well, um let me, let, let me, let you talk to our pastor. No. What, what God intended and what God desires is that you would say, well, let me tell you about the one, the only one, the holy one who rescued me from sin and death. And hell, let me tell you about the one whose love is so valuable that it never stops, it never fails, it never ends. And that love has been put in my soul and he is protecting my soul for all of eternity. Let me tell you about my God who has done great things is doing great things. The greatest of all of these is what He's done through Jesus. Let me tell you as the song says about my Jesus. Those moments will come. So we have to listen to God, to learn to love God so that we will understand what it means to love him with all of our heart and our mind and our strength and our soul and every part of who we are. But let's be brutally honest. Sometimes we don't want to love God. We don't, we, we don't wanna love God with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength. We, we just don't, and, and it's not even because it feels impossible or hard to do. Sometimes we're, we're just angry enough. We're just scared enough. We're just depressed enough. We're just whatever enough that we don't want to. We just, we just don't wanna do it. So what do we do then? See, it's one thing for Jesus to say Jesus is, this is the greatest commandment. This is the first and the most, this is it. Love God with everything that you have. OK? We're like, ok. All right. That, that sounds, that sounds noble. That sounds nice. And then here's what it means to love God with all of your heart and mind and soul and strength. OK? All right. I got, I got a little bit of that. It, it still not something I can perfectly do but OK. All right. None of these things sound crazy. They, they sound noble. But then, but then what if I don't want to even as a Christian? What if, what if, what if I don't want to, what do I do? Then I was reading a letter from one friend to another friend this week and, and the one friend that was being written to was struggling with this, struggling with just wanting to love God and follow God. And, and so this is part of what the friend wrote when the darkness of uncertainty and fear hangs over. You ever been there? And as much as by grace it remains in, you don't let go of the one you knew in the light, darkness is coming. It's coming. I'm a fool to lie to you. Hey, everything's going to be peachy and rosy. No darkness is coming. It might be at work. It might be in a relationship. It might be in the death of a loved one. It might be in a, a lost job. It might be even just in your team losing. But there's, there's some type of darkness that may come. It may be with your health and when the darkness comes, don't forget the one you knew in the light because he never changes. He's the only holy one. So when darkness comes, don't, don't forget the one that you do in the light and, and here's why I love this. The letter goes on, keep holding on. If only it may seem by your fingernails. I'm just barely hanging on. Why? Because his hands are on his children's fingernails. Day and night. It's good. That's good. Don't forget the one you knew in the light. And if all you can do is hang on with your fingernails, hang on with your fingernails because he is hanging on to your fingernails and he will not let go. It is impossible for him to let go. Easter Sunday. The resurrection of Jesus is why it's impossible for him to let go. He's already fulfilled his guarantee. The letter goes home. Sometimes we feel his grasp more sweetly than at other times. And it is a fearful thing when we are going through a season where we don't feel it at all. I've been there, I've been there and they were just like God. I, I don't feel you God, I don't feel your presence. God, why won't you work this out? I've had those moments. And then he said, the reason he was writing this letter to his friend was really just to make sure that he got at least two things across. And here are the two things that God is present in the darkness. He is. And I love this one and that God is holding on to his people when they feel barely able to hold on to Him. This is the character and nature of God. It's not the character and nature of any other little g God ever, ever in India. There are maybe millions of different gods that they worship. None of their gods are this God, this God holds on to his people when they can barely hold on to him. How do we know? This is not just a nice little friendly letter. How do we know this is not just religion, just a, a religious crutch to try to help his friend through a difficult time. How do we know this is true. How do, how do we know that God hangs on to the fingernails? How, how do we know that he holds on even when we can barely hold on? You know how we know because Jesus has risen. It's not a holiday in the spring. It is the foundation of our faith. Every day. The resurrection of Jesus changes every equation in life, the birth, the life, the death, the resurrection, the ascension, the promised return of Jesus. It changes the math of every moment and it changes our want to and it changes how we love. Why Stuart Town and wrote a song uh many years ago now and, and the words go like this. How deep the Father's love for us, how vast, beyond all measure. Look, I, I can measure my love and you can measure your love. We can, I mean, I, I do this, I do this in some ways every day. You know, it's, it's been 11 months since my dad died and I, every day I'm experiencing the measure of his love. I, I'm, I'm experiencing all the different ways that he loved me that I don't experience anymore. I'm, I'm able to measure his love and in good ways, not in bad ways and in great ways I'm able to measure how he loved. But I'm, I don't enjoy those measurements anymore because he's with the Lord. He's not here with me, but the measurements of the Lord's love can't be measured, that can't be measured. They're, they're vast, they're beyond being measured. They're too great, too incredible. How deep the father's love for us, how vast, beyond all measure that he would give his only son to make a wretch like Dal, we a treasure. Why should I gain from his reward? Why should I gain from the reward of Christ? I cannot give an answer. The math never works that an innocent man would rescue a scoundrel. Why should I gain from his reward? I cannot give an answer. But this I know with all of my heart, his wounds have paid my ransom. The greatest expression of love that has ever been displayed in the universe is the love of God through Jesus Christ. There is no greater love and his wounds and only his wounds are able to pay in full and finality. The ransom connected to our sin. God deserves our love over and over again because of how He has so loved you and me and the world through Jesus. And because of God, that's why we say the greatest word ever is love.