What is the Greatest Commandment? Matthew 22:34-46

Intro

Today is the Superbowl

It has become a day more about gathering than the event itself

Think about it

What are we going to eat?

How entertaining are the commercials

Who’s performing at halftime?

We don’t just gather for the game, we gather to be with others

Tuesday is Valentines day

Let this serve as a public service announcement

It is estimated that people will spend $29 billion

That is why Hallmark can have it own channel of cheesy movies

Someone has said that love may not make the world go around but it makes the trip worthwhile.

In whatever age or with whatever group of people, it has been the almost universal belief that love is the greatest thing in life

God’s Word concurs that love is the greatest virtue, but the love which it elevates as supreme is of a much deeper and more substantive kind than that which the world understands and admires.

Today we are going to talk about the greatest commandment in the Bible

Jesus actually shares the top two commandments

Jesus takes the 10 commandments and compresses them down to two

Love God and Love Others

Jesus declared that agapē love is the supreme divine requirement of men, both in regard to Himself and in regard to other men.

Read Matthew 22:34-40

Transition

The law was very important to the Pharisees

Over the years, the rabbis had supposedly determined that, just as there were 613 separate letters in the Hebrew text of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments

In the book of Numbers, there were also 613 separate laws in the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses.

Letterism, as it is sometimes called, was extremely popular and was considered to be a valuable exegetical tool for interpreting Scripture.

The rabbis had divided those 613 laws into affirmative and negative groups

There were 248 affirmative laws, one for every part of the human body, as they supposed

There were also 365 negative laws, one for each day of the year.

The rabbis and scribes spent countless hours proudly debating the merits of their particular divisions and the ranking of laws

Jesus’ teaching of Scripture was so utterly contrary to theirs the Pharisees were convinced that He must be teaching a message He considered to be greater than that of Moses.

They assumed that His naming the one great commandment in the Law would be sufficient enough to condemn Him.

Instead Jesus silences them for good by upholding the law and condensing it into two nuggets

I. The Greatest Commandment vs. 34-40

What is the greatest commandment?

It is to love the Lord God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength

vs. 36-38 Love the Lord

When the Pharisees heard about Jesus silencing the Sadducees, they decided to have another try themselves at entrapping Him, this time directly by one of their own number rather than through their less capable disciples

The particular one of them that they chose to confront Jesus was a lawyer.

The man was a scribe but was called a lawyer by Matthew to indicate his unusual expertise in the Mosaic law

This lawyer, however, also seems to have been a cut above his fellow religious leaders in honesty and humility

In his addressing Jesus as Teacher, the lawyer was probably not being scornful, as the previous questioners had been

he seems to have had respect for Jesus and may have felt somewhat guilty

Jesus responds w/o hesitation

His answer is in accordance with the law and tradition

Jesus quotes the Shema

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Shema is Hebrew for hear

It’s named because it begins with Hear, O Israel

Jews would copy the Shema on small pieces of parchment and place them in phylacteries to wear on the forehead or left arms

They would also place them in Mezuzahs and attach them to doorposts

Agape Love

Aheb, the Hebrew word for love used in Deuteronomy 6:5, refers primarily to an act of mind and will, the determined care for the welfare of something or someone

It is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek agapaō in the New Testament, the verb of intelligent, purposeful, and committed love that is an act of the will

Agape love is a higher form of love

Phileo is the brotherly love we feel for friends and family

Eros is the relationship love we feel for our spouse

Agape is the unconditional, self-sacrificing love that puts the other person first

We are first to Love God like that, then love our neighbor

The order is important

To love the Lord with all one’s heart, … soul, and … mind does not express separate and technical definitions of each element of human nature or a compartmentalizing of love into three or four categories, but rather connotes comprehensiveness.

We are to love the Lord our God with every part of our being

To the Hebrew heart referred to the core of one’s personal being

Proverbs 4:23 ESV

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

The term soul is closest to what we would call emotion

Mind corresponds to what is usually translated “might” in Deuteronomy 6:5.

The Hebrew term had a broad connotation and carried the general idea of moving ahead with energy and strength.

Mind is used here in the sense of intellectual, willful vigor and determination, carrying both the meaning of mental endeavor and of strength.

Genuine love of the Lord is intelligent, feeling, willing, and serving

The Ten Commandments themselves make clear that love for and obedience to God are inseparable.

John 14:15 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Why do we love the Lord?

Because He first loved us

When we were still sinners God loved us

Our love for him is in response to what He has done for us

God needs to be the object of our affection

Love does not look at itself—it is absorbed in the object of its love.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

There isn’t a part of our life where we hold back that love

The person who truly loves the Lord with all his heart and soul and mind is the person who trusts Him and obeys Him.

That person demonstrates his love by

meditating on God’s glory

trusting in God’s divine power

seeking fellowship with God

loving what God loves

loving whom God loves

vs. 39-40 Love Your Neighbor

After stating the first and greatest commandment, Jesus did the Pharisees one better and added the second as well: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The Pharisees had no genuine love for God, neither did they have genuine love even for their Jewish neighbor

The word neighbor in the OT meant any fellow Israelite or member of the covenant

Jesus increases that to include anyone you come in contact with

Leviticus 19:18 ESV

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Genuine love for one’s neighbor is of the same kind as genuine love for God.

It is by choice purposeful, intentional, and active, not merely sentimental and emotional

Galatians 5:14 ESV

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Contrary to some contemporary interpretations of this passage, Jesus was not commanding that a person love himself but assumed he already does love himself.

You express that love by being patient and kind

The best part of this love is that you don’t have to manufacture it

Romans 5:5 ESV

and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

The Holy Spirit pours this love into our hearts

If you aren’t feeling too loving you can ask the Spirit to refill your heart

1 John 3:16–17 ESV

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

II. The Son of David vs. 41-46

vs. 41-42

vs. 43-44

vs. 45-46

Closing: Communion