A Future Worth Building | Pastor Taylor Ford | October 25th, 2026
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:28-31
First and greatest commandment.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Hear, O Israel
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Deuteronomy 6:5
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:17
We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:19
Keep these commandments on your hearts.
Deuteronomy 6:6
Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.
John 14:21
Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.”
John 14:23
Impress them on your children…
Deuteronomy 6:7
When you sit at home…
Deuteronomy 6:7
When you walk along the road…
Deuteronomy 6:7
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Romans 12:1
When you lie down and get up…
Deuteronomy 6:7
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your and gates.
Deuteronomy 6:8-9
“Listen for God, stop and watch and wait for him. To love God means to pay attention, be mindful, be open to the possibility that God is with you in ways that, unless you have your eyes open, you may never glimpse. He speaks words that, unless you have your ears open, you may never hear. Draw near to him as best you can.”
Fredrick Buechner
You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched landwhere there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
Psalm 63:1-4
Loving your neighbor as yourself.
The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no commandment greater than these.
Mark 12:31
Loving my neighbor means seeing every person has my neighbor.
Loving my neighbor means I don’t need to seek revenge.
Loving my neighbor means seeing potential for transformation when everyone else just sees their past.
Loving my neighbor means sacrificially serving those in my church family.
Loving my neighbor means living out “BLESS.”
BEGIN with prayer
LISTEN to the needs of others
EAT a meal with your neighbors, co-workers or friends
SERVE others – look for ways to be a servant
SHARE your story of faith
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:7-12
Worship Set:
Praise The Lord (Everything Within Me)
How Great Thou Art
Center
How He Loves