The Greatest Commandment

Intro

Talking about love

What is love

How do we love

We were designed for one purpose, to love God

Scripture

Mark 12:28–34 ESV

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord 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 mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

The Most Important Command

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord 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 you mind and with all your strength.”

The Lord is one

Heart, soul, mind, and strength

The Second Most Important Command

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love yourself

Love your neighbor

The Decalogue

Deuteronomy 6:4-6 ““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. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.”

Leviticus 19:18 “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

Exodus 20:1-17 (ESV)

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

The first 4 commandments have to do with how we relate to God:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

The following 6 commandments have to do with how we relate to others:

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

The Leaven of the Pharisees

We’ve taken a simple passage and dug deeper

Don’t lose the simplicity

Don’t forget the heart

The Leaven of the Sadducees

Desire to reinterpret Scripture

Law and Love are not opposites, they are intimately connected

Permissiveness

It is not loving to rejoice in wrong doing

There are churches and church leaders who say we must accept what society accepts because otherwise people won’t listen, the church will become irrelevant.

If the church sounds exactly like the culture, then it truly is irrelevant. If the church does not stand on the law of God then we have nothing.

We Are A Beacon of Hope

“To know God and make Him known”

Society is adrift in its own filth. Chief among their delusion is that we can take God out of the picture and still have love. Somehow we can remove God and then we will find our purpose and identity. We can tell the Creator what we were created for. We can tell the Judge what is just and unjust.

Look at where this has led society. People are more miserable than ever, suicides are up, violence is up, hopelessness is through the roof, don’t think there are not physical consequences to spiritual disobedience. As the Greatest Commandment shows us, the physical and spiritual are connected.

Here we stand, church. The city on a hill casting the light of Christ so the weary soul can find rest. Do not fear the darkness, have no fear of what others will think of you, but be filled with the boldness of the Holy Spirit to stand firm in God’s love.

In putting the Greatest Commandment first in our lives our hopes, desires, security are firmly grounded in God. We find our fulfillment and satisfaction in the love of God. We are then able to demonstrate to others greatness of God. They see the effects He has in our lives.

In putting the Second Greatest Commandment second in our lives we live out the mission of God, to let the world know God loves them by caring for one another and pointing them to our Father in Heaven.