Click to Download: Gospel Meeting - The Greatest Commandment

Diligent Seekers of God:

If your church is interested in a weekend Gospel meeting focused on “The Greatest Commandment and How It Applies to Christians Today,” please contact us.

Speaking / Preaching | Earnestly Pursuing God Ministries

GOSPEL MEETING:

“Love God First: With All Your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength”

Based on Mark 12:30

Description:  You attend faithfully. You know the truth. You worship correctly. You are a member of the Lord’s church.

But when was the last time you honestly asked yourself:  do I love God with ALL my heart, ALL my soul, ALL my mind, and ALL my strength?

Not just on Sunday morning. Not just when life gets hard. But every day, with everything you are and everything you have?

Jesus called it the first and greatest commandment. Not a suggestion. Not one commandment among many. The greatest. And if we are honest, it may be the one commandment most of us have never fully obeyed.

Join us for a powerful weekend of preaching designed not to entertain, but to awaken to call God’s people back to the only thing He has always wanted most:  Your whole heart.

Meeting Schedule

Sermon 1 — Friday Evening | 7:00 p.m.

“The Greatest Commandment You’ve Never Fully Obeyed”

Jesus made it simple — love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The question this sermon refuses to let you avoid is whether your life actually proves it.

Sermon 2 — Saturday Morning | 10:00 a.m.

“Sleeping in the Light: When Knowing the Truth Replaced Loving God”

Knowing the truth about God and wholeheartedly loving God are not the same thing and this sermon confronts the dangerous comfort of members who have mastered one while neglecting the other.

Sermon 3 — Saturday Morning | 11:00 a.m.

“You Love the Church More Than You Love God — And You Don’t Even Know It”

The church at Ephesus was doctrinally sound, faithfully laboring, and spiritually fallen because they had replaced their first love with institutional loyalty, and Jesus called it exactly what it was.

Sermon 4 — Sunday Morning | 10:00 a.m.

“All Your Heart. All Your Soul. All Your Mind. All Your Strength.  What Does God Actually See?”

God sees every day of your life — not just Sunday morning — and what He finds there tells the real story of whether you love Him the way the greatest commandment demands.

Sermon 5 — Sunday Morning | 11:00 a.m.

“The Earnest Pursuit God Has Always Deserved — Will You Finally Give It to Him?”

This closing sermon delivers one final, urgent call to the saved:  stop giving God the leftovers of a comfortable life and surrender completely to the pursuit He has always deserved.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Who Should Come?

Every Christian who has ever wondered why their faith feels more like routine than relationship. Every member who has been faithful in attendance but honest enough to admit something is missing. Every believer who is ready to stop giving God the leftovers of a busy life and start giving Him what He has always deserved … first place.

Bring your Bible. Bring a friend. Bring an open and honest heart.

“You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”

— Jeremiah 29:13

[Congregation Name] Church of Christ

[Address]

[City, State, Zip]

[Phone Number]

[Website]

All are welcome. Come ready to be challenged. Leave ready to truly pursue God.

Full Sermon Descriptions:

Gospel Meeting – The Greatest Commandment

Sermon 1 — Friday Evening | 7:00 p.m.

“The Greatest Commandment You’ve Never Fully Obeyed”

Core Text: Mark 12:28–30 | Supporting: Deuteronomy 6:4–5

Every gospel meeting needs an opening sermon that sets the table honestly — and this one does exactly that. Before a single accusation is made, before a single finger is pointed, Jesus Himself walks into the room and asks the question that will define the entire weekend.

When a scribe asked Jesus which commandment was greatest, He did not hesitate. He did not offer a list. He gave one answer — love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. Not most of it. Not the part that is convenient. All of it.

This sermon establishes that standard plainly and personally. It is not a sermon about what the world is doing wrong or what the denominations have gotten wrong. It is a sermon aimed at the mirror — at the faithful, attending, truth-knowing member of the Lord’s church who has perhaps never sat quietly before God and honestly measured their life against the greatest commandment Jesus ever spoke.

The goal of this opening sermon is not to condemn but to awaken. To plant one question so deeply in every heart in the room that it cannot be ignored for the rest of the weekend:

When God looks at my life — all of it, not just Sunday morning — does He see a person who loves Him with everything?

Sermon 2 — Saturday Morning | 10:00 a.m.

“Sleeping in the Light: When Knowing the Truth Replaced Loving God”

Core Text: Romans 13:11–12 | Supporting: Revelation 3:1–3 / James 2:19

There is a unique and dangerous condition that afflicts those who have known the truth for a long time — they begin to substitute knowing it for living it. The light of God’s Word surrounds them, but they have grown so accustomed to it that it no longer stirs them. They are, in the most sobering sense, asleep in the light.

This sermon confronts one of the most common realities in established Churches of Christ — members who can quote Scripture, defend the pattern of worship, and correct doctrinal error, yet whose private lives show little evidence of a burning, wholehearted love for God. They have mastered the content of the faith without being mastered by the God of the faith.

Paul’s urgent cry in Romans 13 — it is high time to awake out of sleep — was written to Christians, not to the lost. The church in Sardis had a reputation for being alive while being spiritually dead. Even demons, James reminds us, believe and tremble — belief alone is never enough.

This sermon calls the knowledgeable, doctrinally sound member to examine whether their truth has become a trophy they display rather than a fire that consumes them. Knowing the truth about God and loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength are not the same thing — and this sermon refuses to let that difference go unaddressed.

Sermon 3 — Saturday Morning | 11:00 a.m.

“You Love the Church More Than You Love God — And You Don’t Even Know It”

Core Text: Revelation 2:1–5 | Supporting: Matthew 22:37–38 / 1 John 5:21

This is the most confrontational sermon of the series — and it is placed deliberately on Saturday morning when minds are fresh and the Spirit has already been working since Friday night.

The church at Ephesus was, by every measurable standard, a model congregation. They labored tirelessly. They tested false teachers and found them wanting. They endured hardship without quitting. And yet Jesus looked at all of it and said — you have left your first love. He did not say they stumbled. He said they fell. And He demanded repentance.

This sermon holds that passage directly in front of the Church of Christ member who finds their identity, their community, their purpose, and their spiritual satisfaction primarily in the congregation — in the institution — rather than in God Himself. It is possible to be devoted to the church and distant from God at the same time. The Ephesians proved it.

The hard truth this sermon drives home is that God never asked for your church membership. He asked for your heart. Institutional loyalty, faithful attendance, and congregational pride are not substitutes for a personal, burning, wholehearted love for God — and when they become substitutes, they become, in the language of 1 John, a form of idolatry.

This is not an attack on the church. It is a defense of what the church exists to produce — men and women whose first love is God Himself, always and above all.

Sermon 4 — Sunday Morning | 10:00 a.m.

“All Your Heart. All Your Soul. All Your Mind. All Your Strength. — What Does God Actually See?”

Core Text: Deuteronomy 6:4–6 | Supporting: Jeremiah 17:10 / Psalm 139:23–24

Sunday morning. The Lord’s Day. The congregation is assembled, dressed, present — and God sees everything the assembly does not.

This sermon goes deepest of the five because it takes the greatest commandment apart word by word and holds each piece against the reality of daily life. All your heart — what does your heart actually pursue from Monday through Saturday? All your soul — is your innermost being oriented toward God or toward comfort? All your mind — what occupies your thoughts when no one is watching? All your strength — does God get your best energy or what is left after everything else has taken its share?

Jeremiah declared that God searches the heart and examines the mind. Psalm 139 invites that searching gaze — search me, O God, and know my heart. This sermon extends that same invitation to the congregation, but not as a comfortable exercise. As an honest reckoning.

The goal is to move the greatest commandment from a verse people know by memory into a standard that searches their actual lives. God is not impressed by Sunday morning presence. He inhabits the other six days just as fully — and what He finds there tells the real story of whether a person loves Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Sermon 5 — Sunday Morning | 11:00 a.m.

“The Earnest Pursuit God Has Always Deserved — Will You Finally Give It to Him?”

Core Text: Hebrews 11:6 | Supporting: Jeremiah 29:13 / Luke 13:24 / Mark 12:30

Every sermon in this series has been building to this moment — and this final sermon does not ease off. It leans in.

God rewards those who diligently seek Him. That is not a motivational slogan. It is a declaration of divine principle embedded in the hall of faith. But diligent seeking and comfortable membership are not the same thing, and this sermon draws that line one final time with unmistakable clarity.

This closing sermon is not primarily an evangelistic call to the lost. It is a call to the saved — to the faithful member who has sat through four sermons, felt the weight of the greatest commandment, recognized the distance between what God deserves and what they have been giving Him, and is now standing at a decision.

Will you keep living the way you have been living — attending, knowing, worshiping correctly, and giving God what is left over after everything else? Or will you finally surrender the whole of your life to the first and greatest commandment and pursue God the way He has always deserved to be pursued?

Jeremiah 29:13 does not say you will find God when you seek Him casually. It says you will find Him when you seek Him with all your heart. Luke 13:24 does not say enter the narrow gate whenever it is convenient. It says strive — agonize — to enter.

This sermon closes the weekend with grace and urgency held together — the grace of a God who is still waiting and still worthy, and the urgency of a life too short and an eternity too real to keep giving Him anything less than everything.

Click to Download: Gospel Meeting - The Greatest Commandment