Deep Love In A Shallow World

“If love is not four-dimensional, it's shallow.” — Pastor Matthew Johnson

In this message, Pastor Matthew Johnson teaches from Matthew 22:34–40, where Jesus takes the countless commands of Scripture and simplifies them into two life-changing truths: love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Pastor Matthew begins by reflecting on how, as a teacher, one of the greatest challenges is not filling time but editing down a message to the essentials. He points out that Jesus does this masterfully in this passage. In a few short sentences, Jesus summarizes every law and every command God has ever given.

What Jesus reveals is that our entire faith rests on two foundations - wholehearted love for God and genuine love for people. Both are inseparable and both demand all of who we are.

Pastor Matthew explains that Jesus calls us to love in a way that involves every part of who we are - mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. This, he says, is “four-dimensional love.”

In contrast, our culture often models a shallow version of love. Romantic relationships without commitment, friendships without loyalty, and gestures without action all point to a culture that’s forgotten what love really means.

As Pastor Matthew described, we often say “I love you” with words or emotions, but not with actions or endurance. True love, however, always reaches deeper. It shapes how we think, feel, worship, and live. Anything less is incomplete.

When Jesus said to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, He invited us to a love that touches every area of life. Pastor Matthew unpacked what that means:

• Mentally: We honor God by believing His truth as the only foundation for life.
• Emotionally: We surrender joyfully, trusting His ways even when they stretch us.
• Spiritually: We connect through prayer, worship, and His Word.
• Physically: We live out obedience in visible, everyday actions.
  
  

This complete love is not just about believing in God. It’s about aligning our thoughts, desires, and choices with His will. And that alignment, Pastor Matthew reminds us, is always expressed through obedience.

“If you don’t obey, you don’t love God,” Pastor Matthew said plainly.
That statement challenges cultural ideas about love. In a world that says love is defined by personal feeling, Jesus redefines love as surrender - giving our will, trust, and obedience to God.

To love someone truly, we must love them in the way they receive love. Pastor Matthew used his marriage as an example, explaining that his wife, Mary, feels loved through acts of service, while he tends to express love differently. For their marriage to flourish, he has learned to love her the way she receives love, not just the way he prefers to give it.

It’s the same with God. Real love for Him means learning to love Him on His terms - through obedience and trust. We don’t get to define love; God does.

Pastor Matthew reminded the congregation that love requires trust, especially when God’s plan doesn’t make sense.

He asked a series of questions: Have you ever been confused by God? Hurt by God? Felt distant from Him? Wanted to sin even when you knew the right thing to do? Each of these moments tests whether we trust Him.

Faith means believing that God’s commands come from love, not restriction. It’s trusting that His ways are good, even when they go against our instincts or comfort.
To love God fully, we must believe that He is good, always. Only then can we surrender everything and find peace in obedience.

From there, Pastor Matthew turned to the second command: loving people. He emphasized that we can’t truly love people until we first love God.

Without God, our love remains partial or self-serving. But as we walk with Him, His love transforms us from the inside out. That transformation leads us to treat others with patience, forgiveness, and humility, even when people are difficult to love.

He reminded the church, “People are the worst… and I know that because I’m one of them.” Yet God loves us at our worst, and that reality empowers us to love others as He does.

Pastor Matthew then outlined how this transformation grows:

1. The more we love God, the more we obey.
2. The more we obey, the more His truth becomes real.
3. The more His truth becomes real, the more we reflect His love.
4. The more we reflect His love, the more people are drawn to Jesus.
   
   

That is the rhythm of discipleship, love leading to obedience, and obedience leading to transformation.

The sermon concluded with a deeply personal reflection. Pastor Matthew shared a story from a counseling session years ago when he was asked to describe his relationship with God. His honest response brought him to tears: “I just love Him so much.”

He explained that God’s love had always felt one-sided, that God had loved him, forgiven him, and pursued him far more faithfully than he ever deserved. Looking back on years of grace, forgiveness, and purpose, Pastor Matthew realized that his love for God is simply a response to being loved first.

That awareness changed everything. It allowed him to surrender joyfully - not out of obligation, but out of gratitude. When we understand that God’s love came first, obedience no longer feels like sacrifice; it becomes worship.

Just as Pastor Matthew has never needed to be commanded to love his wife — because she already has his heart - no one needs to command him to love God. God has his heart, and He will always have it.

That is the deep love Jesus calls us to, love that holds nothing back, that endures through confusion and pain, and that reflects the love God first gave us.

To love God and love people in a shallow world is not easy. But it is the only way to live fully, freely, and in the purpose we were made for.

The Tree Church is a community of believers with two campuses in Lancaster and Logan, Ohio. Services are held on Sundays at 9:00 and 11:00 AM, offering worship, teaching, and connection for all ages.

Lancaster: 721 N Memorial Dr, Lancaster, OH 43130
Logan: 36 Hocking Mall, Logan, OH 43138

For more sermons, visit thetree.church/blog/category/sermons.